Tortall Reads the POTS
by Dom-Loves-Kel
Summary: Tortall is frozen in time; The Great Mother Goddess has gifted our favourite characters with an intriguing quartet of books; The Protector of the Small Series. How will Kel feel about her deepest emotions being revealed not only to her peers, but her superiors? And, how will this affect her budding relationship with Dom, and new role as Lady Knight Commander of the Own?
1. Divine Intervention

Chapter 1: Reading The Protector of the Small

_Disclaimer: I am not Tamora Pierce, I do not own Tortall nor its characters, and I am not profiting from my writing. All text in bold belongs to Tamora Pierce, and I hope that I can do her justice _

_I started this fic back in 2010, posted it in 2011, and then got thoroughly distracted! I now want to slowly get back into it! I hope you enjoy._

DIVINE INTERVENTION

_464 H.E._

Kel abruptly opened her eyes, surprised to find the harsh glow of the mid-morning sun dazzling through her open shutters. With a start, she jumped from bed, disturbing the figure still curled under the covers.

"Dom, get up! Get up, you fool! Do you want the entire Palace rife with rumours of the promiscuous Lady Knight Commander taking to bed with the Captain of Third Company? How do you think Neal and Raoul would react if they found out after half of Corus," Kel whispered urgently.

For now, it was critical that Kel maintained a semi-acceptable reputation to the conservatives of the court for she had to consolidate her leadership as Lady Knight Commander of the King's Own. It wouldn't do for her peers to lose respect for her at this time, as just a feminine and promiscuous lady, bedding their captain! Her mentor Raoul had stepped down from his role during the period of peace following the Scanran War, and he had convinced King Jonathon IV to appoint Kel as his replacement. Kel was experienced working with the companies of the Own, having served with them during her Squire years and also after her escapade in Scanra, in Frasrlund, where she accompanied Second Company on their rotation in the North.

Kel hastily yanked the covers off of Dom's body, eager to kick him out of her room, just in case Neal were to appear unexpectedly; as he had a habit of doing. In the year since Kel and her year mates had returned to Corus from the boarder, Neal had married her Yamani friend, Yuki. They now had an infant daughter, Kelly, who Kel was godsmother to. Unbeknownst to Neal, Irnai had predicted that Kelly would be a little monster, and would in fact try for her shield; this greatly pleased Kel who anticipated mentoring her young godsdaughter with great excitement.

Dom scrambled for his breeches, kissing Kel on the cheek before catapulting himself out the window, disturbing her sparrows which had just arrived to chirp good morning. Nari confirmed that Neal was en route to her chambers in the Own's barracks, so she quickly readied herself for the day.

Upon hearing the pounding on her door, Kel grabbed her glaive, and pulled on the handle, almost receiving a fist in the face for her efforts. "Oh Meathead, what a pleasant morning it is, only enhanced by your presence!" Kel exclaimed.

Neal curtly responded "Kel, it's 3 bells past dawn! You must have had a big night considering your absence from glaive practice. Yuki just sent me now to collect you so that you can spar, whilst I mind Kelly."

Kel blushed remembering the nature of her evening, but quickly glazed her eyes over with her Yamani mask. "Yes thank you Meathead, I was just on my way. Will you and my beloved godsdaughter be accompanying me to the practice courts?"

"No," replied Neal, "I'm off to find my cousin for he was also strangely absent from breakfast."

Kel silently prayed that Dom had made it back to his chambers and was similarly ready for the day, to avoid an awkward and potentially suspicious explanation to the ever-nosy Neal.

Kel and Neal parted at the entry into the barracks, Neal wandering the corridors in search for the missing Captain of the Own, whilst Kel jogged off to the practice courts.

Kel arrived to the sight of Thayet sparring with Buri, whilst Alanna and Raoul were duelling. Kel approached Yuki with apprehension, but was greeted by a bright smile, and her crinkled eyes. Yuki had become more accustomed to the liberal and emotional nature of Tortallans.

"Good morning Yuki, sorry for keeping you waiting! Shall we warm up now?" Kel was eager to warm up with the glaive so that she could have a sword fight with the Lioness later in the morning. Whilst jealous of Neal's tutelage under Alanna on the sword during his Squire years, Kel benefitted greatly from her instruction as a fellow Lady Knight, and was certainly appreciative for all that she learned and experienced with Raoul!

Yuki and Kel were just entering the beginning stages of their pattern dance when she sluggishly released the pole-arm from her grasp. She had felt an electric shock jolt through her body, and it seemed to her that time was slowing down. By the time that Kel had become re-accustomed to her surroundings, she noticed that almost all of the women and men on the practice court, riders, men of the Own, nobles and servants, had halted their work; their eyes glazed over and their faces as expressionless as a Yamani. Only Alanna, Thayet, Buri, Shinko, Raoul, Yuki and Kel seemed to have free will to wander together and congregate to discuss this development. Alanna drew her sword, gazing at the hilt to the small mirror which she'd attached there for the sole purpose of scrying.

"Everything's grey and hazy my friends, it seems to me that we have some divine interference here in Corus today," commented Alanna. "O great Mother Goddess, do reveal yourself to us, and perhaps enlighten us to the reasons for which you have halted daily activity here."

Kel heard a resounding chuckle in the courtyard; akin to the howling of hounds, the whispers of the wind, and all the might of the divine.

"Alanna, my dear, it's been too long." And with that brief introduction, an elegant figure swept onto the practice courts. She seemed to glow, empowered with her divinity, and Kel felt a sudden urge to kneel in awe for this mighty power. But she resisted. Kel didn't feel the same connection to the immortal as Alanna did. Her successes were not supported by the divine, rather her own strength and perseverance. Kel stared firmly into the eyes of the Mother Goddess, determination blazing in her eyes.

"To what do we owe the pleasure," Kel politely questioned.

"Keladry, my dear, I do not believe we've met. Whilst I was omnipresent in Alanna's page and squire years, I found myself refraining from appearing to you, for you were determined to complete this without divine intervention. But now, I find myself compelled to offer you a divine gift. Now, I would suggest you accept it, as I foresee that it may make the consolidation of your authority more official, although, you may be inclined to decline, due to the personal sentiments which will be proffered by my gift."

Kel's nerves were high strung as she waited in suspense for the goddesses offer.

"My dear, my brother, the God of War has of course been intrigued in following your tale, and I, also, have been absorbed by your struggles and ultimate successes, so, for the good of your peers, Mithros and I have composed a quartet, the appropriately named 'Protector of the Small Quartet'. It is in fact a lengthy scroll, divided into four parts which express your adventures from your own perspective, during you page and squire years, extending to your first year as a Lady Knight. If you would follow me to The Chamber of the Ordeal, we will be met by Mithros. Thayet and Raoul, would you mind please informing all who are 'awake' to proceed to The Chamber of the Ordeal."

The Great Mother Goddess, swept up the stair case leading into the Palace, walking with an eerie familiarity into the complex, leading to the great chambers of office, in search of her brother and these scrolls.

Kel, meanwhile, stood, mouth agape with shock, attempting to comprehend her predicament. All her private contemplations would be revealed to her peers and even her superiors... Her struggle with Joren and bullies... gods, even her crush on Neal would be revealed! Kel wasn't sure how she felt about this revelation, yet she knew that she could not argue with the gods, short of being banished to oblivion. So with a great reluctance, Kel composed herself and marched in the direction of the Chamber.


	2. Gods' Interference

Chapter 2: Reading the Protector of the Small

TITLE

Kel was shocked to see how many of Corus' elite were gathered in the ante-chamber to the Chamber of the Ordeal. As she entered, Alanna sent her purple magic to light the torches all around the room, enabling Kel to clearly identify all of the people in the room. She was pleased to see her friends Neal, Merric, Owen, some other of her friends from her training days and of course, Dom. She was nervous to notice that Lord Wyldon was present, as well as the King and even her parents! Kel was under the impression that her parents were visiting the Isles, conducting diplomacy on behalf of the crown.

Everyone's attention was completely directed at The Great Mother Goddess who delicately found her way to the top of the stairs, in front of the door to the Chamber of the Ordeal.

"I have brought you here today," she introduced, "in order for you to witness the great feats committed by one young Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan, prior to her appointment as a Lady Knight of the realm, as well as her resilience and dedication to Tortall as a Lady Knight. As many of you know, she is an impressive young lady, and it is with great honour that I present to you the Protector of the Small Quartet, composed by myself and my brother Mithros."

At this, said god appeared next to his sister. He unravelled the scroll from his robes, and beckoned Kel forward. He passed her the scroll and she reluctantly accepted it.

"Thank you, Mithros, however, I'm not so sure that I'm ready to have my friends, and my elders whom I respect, read these chronicles! I'd rather they not read my more intimate opinions, and-"

Kel's remarks were cut off by an insolent shout from none other than Meathead: "Oh come off it Kel! We just want a chance to see how you held up! We're all friends here, we promise not to judge you. And myself am quite interested to read your thoughts when you were talking to me... I mean, what could possibly have motivated you to force feed me vegetables."

Ever her saviour, Dom distracted Kel from considering her previous crush on Neal, exclaiming "Why dear cousin, surely we just want to find out Kel's motivation for befriending a meathead such as yourself."

Neal, rebuffed, retreated into the embrace of his accepting daughter, who forgave him for all his insolence, largely due to the fact that she was unable to protest to his affections!

The motley group gathered in the Chamber began to settle themselves to read, whilst in contrast, Mithros and the Great Mother Goddess silently slipped out of the room, returning to the Divine Realms, eager to observe forthcoming dramas associated with the remarkable young lady.

Kel readied herself with a deep breath, and was ready for this alternative kraken, when the room was disturbed by the unmistakable tendrils of a certain black-robed mage's gift. The door to the Chamber was smashed open to reveal a sweaty and fired up Carthaki, Master Salmalin.

"Jon, quick, I need a hand, Sarra was abed, and I was reading to her a fascinating Tyran legend, when she seemed to pass into unconsciousness. Whilst I would be pleased if she'd fallen asleep, I think something is amiss in Corus, I didn't pass a soul in the corridors on my way here. Come to think of it... why are you all gathered here? I only wandered in as I sensed Alanna's gift."

Alanna responded to Numair, "Numair, we seem to be in the throes of a bit of divine interference. Our Mother Goddess and Mithros just visited us. You seemed to have been deeply absorbed in your Tyran legend," Alanna remarked sceptically, "but even Daine managed to join us from the Rider's barracks!"

"Daine darling, what's this about the gods' interference?! Is it anything to do with Sarra and Weiryn? Gods, I hate it when our deities try and help us in the Mortal realms, it always ends up in chaos – just look at the aftermath of the Immortals' War... Should I contact the mages of our neighbouring realms, and consult them? Jon what would you like me to do? We must prepare ourselves for a second war if Mithros and the Great Mother Goddess themselves appeared to you."

Daine stood and led Numair to a seat, "No darling, this is more to do with young Keladry. Nothing quite so dramatic, calm down." Reaching for her daughter Sarra from Numair's arms, Daine explained their situation.

Jonathon sealed the room with the regal blue magic of the Conte blood line, and gestured for Keladry to begin her tale. He, of course, was nervous to see the reactions of his progressive friends when they read of his unjust treatment of Kel, whom he was now quite fond of.

Kel, who had coincidentally sat herself next to Dom, who was next to Neal, took comfort in the close company of her friends, and met the gaze of the King with steely determination, raising her voice to the pitch expected of a commander on the battle field, Kel read clearly, **Chapter 1, Decisions**...


	3. Decisions

DECISIONS

Kel read clearly, **Chapter 1, Decisions**… The group silenced immediately, Kel's authoritative voice cutting through the clamour.

**Alanna the Lioness, the King****'****s Champion, could hardly contain her glee.**

Kel paused here, unsure of what was going on. She didn't recall this meeting Alanna prior to arriving at the Palace.

**Baron Piers of Mindelan had written to King Jonathon to say that his daughter wished to be a page. Alanna fought to sit still as she watched Wyldon of Cavall, the royal training master, read the baron****'****s letter.****"**

Now Kel understood... She was happy that Alanna felt this way about her enrolment, although Alanna's reaction here seemed on a completely different scale to her interactions with Kel in her first year. While still jealous of Neal for having spent 4 years under Alanna's tutelage as a Squire, Kel would eternally be grateful for having Raoul as her Knight-master! She couldn't imagine her life without her time with the Own and the opportunities which stemmed from her experiences.

**Seated across his desk from them, the King watched the training master as sharply as his Champion did. Lord Wyldon was known for his dislike of female warriors.**

At this, Alanna glared at the contemporary Wyldon, sitting a few feet away from her. Wyldon felt Alanna's fiery eyes directed at him, mentally preparing himself for the speech he would have to give to defend his actions during Keladry's probationary years.

**It had been ten long years since the proclamation that girls might attempt a page****'****s training. Alanna had nearly given up hope that such a girl ****– ****or the kind of family that would allow her to do so ****– ****existed in Tortall, but at last one had come forward. Keladry of Mindelan would not have to hide her sex for eight years as Alanna had done. Keladry would prove to the world that girls could be knights. And she would not be friendless. Alanna had plans to help Keladry through the first few years.**

"It never occurred to me that someone may object!" exclaimed Alanna, still upset at her lost opportunities to bond with her prodigy.

**It never occurred to the Champion that anyone might object.**

"Some people never change" chuckled Raoul heartily.

"Don't mock me Giant Killer, I can still best you with a sword," Alanna grumbled, her face growing red.

**Alanna half turned to see Wyldon better. Surely he****'****s read the letter at least twice! From this side the puffy scars from his battle to save the younger princes and princess were starkly visible; Wyldon****'****s right arm was still in a sling from that fight. Alanna rubbed fingers that itched with the urge to apply healing magic.**

Everyone rolled their eyes at this. Alanna notoriously could not go a day without healing a citizen of Corus, a poor country peasant, one of her subjects at Pirate Swoop, she'd even tried her hand at wild magic, but unfortunately did not possess the same skills as Daine.

**Wyldon had the idea that suffering pain made a warrior stronger. He would not thank her if she tried to heal him now.**

**Goddess bless, she though tiredly. How will I ever get on with him if I****'****m to help this girl Keladry?**

**Wyldon was not flexible: he****'****s proved that to the entire court over and over. If her were any stiffer, Alanna thought wryly, I****'****d paint a design on him and use him for a shield**.

"You wouldn't, Lioness," muttered Wyldon.

Alanna thought that Wyldon had changed a lot recently, she found herself respecting him, and also knew that Kel held a great admiration for him. Yet of course, she was still disgruntled that he put Kel on a probation year and made her cease all contact with her. He wasn't quite as progressive as she'd have liked, but he certainly wasn't the Conservative he once was.

**He****'****s got no sense of humour and he rejects to change just because it****'****s change.**

"I think it's time that I put a word in before you all destroy me for my past mistakes. I've come to my senses. Young Keladry here made me reassess my views on warriors and women as warriors. How could I, in good faith, reject women in our fighting forces having witnessed the likes of the Lioness, Thayet the Peerless, Daine the Wildmage, Buri and of course, Keladry, my own Lady Knight Commander. Never again will I underestimate a woman with a sword. Please, do not lose respect in me due to the bigoted and archaic sentiment in these scrolls. I assure you, I'm quite the progressive now." Wyldon had risen for his impromptu speech, but now took his seat, across from Keladry. She smiled at her old training master. They had become close peers now, especially as she was in fact his Commander. Wyldon had accepted her offer of Captain of Second Company, so they spent a lot of time working together. Kel's musings ended as Neal nudged her to continue reading.

**Still, she had to admit that his teaching worked. During the Immortal****'****s War of the Spring and early summer, when legendary creatures had joined with the realm****'****s human enemies to take the kingdom, the squires and pages had been forced into battle. They had done well, thanks to their training by Wyldon and the teachers he had picked.****" **

Wyldon nodded in acknowledgement of this rare compliment.

**At last Lord Wyldon returned the letter to King Jonathon, who placed it on his desk. ****"****The baron and the baroness are faithful servants of the crown,****' ****the King remarked. ****'****We would not have this treaty with the Yamani Isles were it not for them. You will have read that their daughter received some warrior training at the Yamani court, so it would appear that Keladry has an aptitude.****'**

**Lord Wyldon resettled his arm in its sling. ****'****I did not agree to this, Your Majesty.****'**

**Alanna was about to say that he didn****'****t have to agree when she saw the King give the tiniest shake of his head. Clenching her jaws, she kept her remark to herself as King Jonathon raised his eyebrows.**

'**Your predecessor agreed,****' ****he reminded Wyldon. ****'****And you, my lord, implied agreement when you accepted the post of training master.****'**

'**That is a lawyers reply, sire,****' ****Wyldon answered stiffly, a slight flush rising in his clean-shaven cheeks.**

'**Then here is a king****'****s: we desire this girl to train as a page.****'**

"On ya Jonnie boy... um I mean, excellent sire?'" Neal insolently hollered.

**And that is that, Alanna thought, satisfied. She might be the kind of knight who would argue with her king, at least in private,****"**

"And public!" the majority of the hall instantly exclaimed, whilst receiving glares from Alanna.

Raoul, Gareth, George and Jon especially enjoyed this, reminiscing on their own years with a young, spirited and opinionated Alan of Trebond.

"**But Wyldon would never let himself do so.****"**

"A true knight." Jonathon responded gaily.

Consequently, there was a riot in the hall! "Jon, how could you?", "Traitor", "Hmph".

**The training master absently rubbed his arm in its linen sling. At last he bowed in his chair. ****'****May we compromise, sire?****'**

**Alanna stiffened. She hated that word!**

"As we'r'all aware, lass," George replied, always the diplomat.

Again, Raoul, Gareth, George and Jon found themselves thinking of the stubborn young Alan, whilst Numair couldn't help but think of his magelet.

'**Com ****– ' ****she began to say.**

**The King silenced her with a look. ****'****What do you want, my lord?****'**

'**In all honesty,****' ****said the training master, thinking aloud, ****'****I had thought that our noble parents loved their daughters too much to place them in so hard a life.****'**

"Wouldn't the same apply for our sons, begging your pardon my lord?" queried Kel.

"I see that now Keladry, I was blinded by my prejudices," replied Lord Wyldon.

Kel just nodded mutely in response.

'**Not everyone is afraid to do something new,****' ****Alanna replied sharply.**

'_**Lioness**_**,****' ****said the king, his voice dangerously quiet. Alanna clenched her fists. What was going on? Was Jonathon inclined to give way to the man because he****'****d saved his children?**

**Wyldon****'****s eyes met hers squarely. ****'****Your bias is known, Lady Alanna.****' ****To the king he said, ****'****Surely the girl****'****s parents cannot be aware of the difficulties she will encounter.****'**

"Of course we understand what Keladry was going to go through – had we not raised Inness, Conal and Anders?," inquired Lady Ilane.

'**Baron Piers and Lady Ilane are not fools,****' ****replied King Jonathon. ****'****They have given us three good, worthy knights already.****'**

**Lord Wyldon gave a reluctant nod. Anders, Inness and Conal of Mindelan were credits to their training. The realm would feel the loss of Anders ****– ****whose war wounds could never heal entirely****- from the active duty rolls.**

Anders grimaced at this; he missed being a "real" knight, and was frequently reminded of his infirmity.

**It would take years to replace those who were killed or maimed in the Immortals Wars.**

Now it was everyone else's turn to grimace – they had all lost family and friends during the War.

'**Sire, please think this through,****' ****Wyldon said. ****'****We need the realm****'****s sons. Girls are fragile, more emotional, easier to frighten.****"**

Ha, thought Kel, he'll regret saying that! In a way, the best thing that would come from the reading of her memories is that everyone would finally understand the pain she went through; Wyldon for one would realise the sacrifices she made for the realm, although he already knew to an extent.

"**They are not as strong in their arms and shoulders as men. They tire easily. This girls would get any warrior who served with her killed on some dark night.****'"** Again Kel thought he'd regret this, but this time immediately, and she was right: there was absolute mayhem! "How dare you", "You know that's not true", "Look at Buri and Thayet, Alanna and Kel. What about the riders?"

Again, Wyldon just took the criticism, with an apologetic look on his face.

**Alanna started to get up. This time King Jonathon walked out from behind his desk. Standing behind his champion, he gripped one of her shoulders, keeping her in her chair.**

'**But I will be fair,****' ****Wyldon continued. His brown eyes hard. ****'****Let her be on probation for a year. By the end of the summer field camp, if she has not convinced me of her ability to keep up, she must go home.****'**

'**Who judges her fitness?****' ****enquired the king.**

**Wyldon****'****s lips tightened. ****'****Who but the training master, sire? I have the most experience in evaluating the young for their roles as future knights.****'**

**Alanna turned to stare at the king. ****'****No **_**boy**_** has every undergone a probationary period!****' ****she cried.**

**Wyldon raised his good shoulder in a shrug. ****'****Perhaps they should. For now, I will not tender my resignation over this, provided I judge whether this girl stays or goes in one year****'****s time.****'**

**The King weighed the request. Alanna fidgeted. She knew Lord Wyldon meant his threat, and the crown needed him. Too many great nobles, dismayed by the changes in Tortall since Jonathon****'****s coronation, felt that Wyldon was their voice at court. If he resigned, the king and queen would find it hard to get support for their future changes.**

**At last King Jonathon said, ****'****Though we do not always agree, my lord, you know I respect you because you are fair and honourable.****"**

"Cough, cough!" grunted Neal, however, the Stump ignored him.

"**I would hate to see that fairness, that honour, tainted in any way. Keladry of Mindelan shall have a year****'****s probation.****'**

My first mistake, thought Wyldon and Jon simultaneously.

"**Lord Wyldon nodded, then inspected the nails on his good hand. ****'****There is one other matter,****' ****he remarked slowly. He looked at Alanna. ****'****Do you plan to involve yourself in this girl****'****s training? It will not do.****'**

**Alanna bristled.**

'Obviously,' drawled Neal.

'Watch it Squire!'

'I'm no Squire, I'm Sir Nealan of Queenscove!'

'You'll always be my Squire, therefore, I can discipline you whenever, and however I want,' Alanna reminded Neal.

'**What is that supposed to mean?****'**

'**You wish to help the girl, understandably.****' ****Wyldon spoke as though the mild words made his teeth hurt. ****'****But you rarely deal with the lads, my lady. If you help the girl, it will be said that you eased her path in some special way. There are rumours that your successes are due to your magical Gift.****'**

'**By the Goddess,****' ****snapped Alanna, crimson with fury. If the King had not forbidden her to challenge men on personal grounds years before, she would have taken Wyldon out to the duelling court and made him regret his words.**

'**Alanna, for heaven****'****s sake, you know the gossip,****' ****King Jonathon said. ****'****Stop acting as if you****'****d never heard it before.****' ****He looked at Wyldon. ****'****And you suggest...****'**

'**Lady Alanna must keep from all contact with the girl,****'"**

'Well Alanna, you certainly didn't heed that advice, did you?' stated Kel.

'Whatever do you mean,' she replied innocently. Everyone looked around in amazement. As far as they were aware, Alanna didn't visit the Palace for the duration of Kel's training; she was in a self-imposed exile at the Swoop or around the realm.

**Wyldon replied firmly. ****'****Even a moment****'****s conversation will give rise to suspicion.****'**

'_**All**_** contact?****' ****cried Alanna. ****'****But she****'****ll be the only girl among over twenty boys! She****'****ll have questions ****– ****I could help ****–' ****She realised what she said and fell silent.**

**King Jonathon gently patted her shoulder. ****'****Is there no other way?****' ****he asked.**

**Wyldon shook his head. ****'****I fear not, sire. The Mindelan girl will be the cause of trouble as it is, without the Lioness hovering over her.****'**

**The king thought it over. At last he sighed. ****'****Lord Wyldon has the right of it. You must stay away from Keladry of Mindelan, Alanna.****'**

"Your Majesty, I can't believe I'm saying this but that decision was the best decision you ever made regarding my situation. Preventing Alanna from communicating with me only made me more determined, and it certainly proved that I achieved what I did on my own.

'**But Jonathon, **_**sire**_**...****' ****she pleaded, not believing he would do this.**

'**That is an **_**order**_**, lady knight. If you cannot accept that, say as much now, and I will find you work elsewhere.****'**

**She stared at him for a long moment, lips tight. At last she got to her feet. ****'****Don****'****t tax yourself. I****'****ll find knight****'****s work myself,****' ****she told him. ****'****As far from Corus as possible.****' ****She stalked out of the room, slamming the door in her wake.**

**The men stared at the door. Each of them was trying to remember if Alanna the Lioness had ever spoken to Jonathon in that tone before.** Jonathon himself didn't think Alanna had spoken to him like that since they were teenagers. They certainly had never fought so badly since the time Alanna ran off with the Bazhir as a young woman, breaking his heart in the process.

"Definitely a bad decision Jonny lad," George advised "nothing worse than an angry Lioness!"

Kel prevented Jonathon from responding, and handed the book over to Wyldon to read.


	4. More Decisions

Decisions (continued)

Wyldon read;

**Baron Piers and Lady Ilane of Mindelan watched Keladry read the reply from the training master. A Tortallan who did not know them well might have thought the man and woman felt nothing, and that their ten-year-old daughter was only concerned, not upset. That was far from true. The family had spent the last six years living in the Yamani Islands, where displays of deep emotion were regarded as shameful. To get the Yamanis to respect them, they had all learned to hide their feelings. Home in Mindelan again, they still acted as Yamanis, hiding uneasiness and even distress behind still faces.**

Everyone in the room was all too familiar with the notorious 'mask' which not only Kel was adept at, but also Yuki and Shinko. Roald especially found it difficult to decipher the feelings of his bride, unused as he was to this shutting off of emotions.

Meanwhile, Kel reflected on this mask. Whilst in the Yamani Islands it was expected that everyone would maintain this illusion of calm to society, in Tortall, her mask had become a hindrance, and, like Yuki, she had been adapting to Tortallan society more and more. Kel thought that her reluctance to lose her mask had at first been due to the intense hazing which she was a victim to in her first years as a page by Joren and his gang. Her mask had kept anyone from knowing that she really was in pain. It had also kept people out though. In fact, it was really her relationship with Dom which was allowing her to evolve and show emotions. She felt so comfortable with him. Although they hadn't actually revealed their relationship to the court, nor their close friends, Kel was sure all would be revealed during this reading as she would definitely need the comfort of her sweetheart during the reading of some of her more intense struggles.

The room had been oblivious to Kel's reflection, as Wydlon continued to read;

**Kel struggled to reread the letter, afraid to say a word. If she did, her shaking voice would give her away. Instead she waited as she tried to control the anger and sense of betrayal that filled her.**

**"It is not the reply we expected," Baron Piers said at last. He was a short, stocky man. Keladry had his build, delicate nose, and dreamy, long-lashed hazel eyes. Her brown hair was several shades lighter than his. When Kel did not reply he continued, "His declaration of ten years ago was that girls could become pages. Nothing was said of probation then."**

**"Keladry?" asked her mother. "You can say what you feel. We are no longer among the Yamanis." She was a thin, elegant woman, taller than her husband by nearly a head, with hair that had gone white very early in life and a deep, musical voice. All Keladry had from her was height. At the age often the girl was already five feet tall and still growing.**

**It took Kel a moment to register what her mother had said. She tried a smile. "But, Mama, I don't want to get into bad habits, in case I go back with you." She looked at Lord Wyldon's letter again. She had expected to be a page when her parents returned to the Yamani Islands in eighteen months. From the tone of this letter, perhaps she ought not to count on that.**

**"It isn't right," she said quietly, even fiercely. "No boys have probation. I'm supposed to be treated the same."**

**"Don't give your answer yet," Baron Piers said quickly. "Take the letter with you. Think about what it says. You're not hasty, Kel - this is a bad time to start."**

**"Reflect as if you have all of time, even when time is short," added her mother in Yamani. "Be as stone.****"**

There it was again, that expectation that Kel should hide her emotions from society. Kel who had once loved the opportunity to hide her pain behind her mask was so happy that she was finally learning to let go.

Dom also was happy that Kel no longer retained a mask. He remembered during her Squire years with the Own, finding it so hard to read her. Dom had in fact had a bit of a crush on Kel, and always admired her. It was when Kel's life was in jeopardy in Scanra that he had realised he had real feelings for her, and just after the weddings at Mastiff, Dom had pursued Kel, privately of course, and realised she also had feelings for him, which he suspected she had harboured for years!

**Kel bowed Yamani-style, palms flat on her thighs. Then she went to find someplace quiet to think.**

**First she went to her room beside the nursery. That wasn't a good choice. Two of her brothers' young families lived at Mindelan. With the children and their nursemaids next door, there was enough noise to drown out trumpets. No one had seen her creep into the room, but her oldest nephew saw her leaving it. Nothing would do for him but that she give him a piggyback ride around the large room. After that, all of the older children wanted rides of their own. Once that was done, the nursemaids helped Kel to escape.**

**She tried to hole up by the fountain in the castle garden, but her sisters-in-law were there, sewing and gossiping with their maids. The kitchen garden was her next choice, but two servants were there gathering vegetables. She stared longingly at her favorite childhood spot, the highest tower in the castle, and felt a surge of anger. Before they had gone to the islands her brother Conal had teasingly held her over the edge of the tower balcony. Until that time she had visited the top of that tower at least once a day. Now the thought of it made her shudder.**

Ilane and Piers briefly glanced at Conal; they were certainly not proud of their son for his behaviour here. Conal just looked down with a heaving sigh, relenting to thinking about his regrets about his relationship with his younger sister.

**There were hundreds of places she might use around the castle, but they were all indoors. She needed to be outside. She was trying to think of a place when she remembered the broad, shallow Domin River, which ran through the woods. No one would be there. She could sit by the water and think in peace.**

**"Miss?" called a voice as she strode through the inner gate in the castle wall. "Where might you be going?"**

**Kel turned to face the man-at-arms who had called to her. "I don't know."**

**The man held out a small horn. "If you're not going to the village, you need one of these." He spoke carefully. The baron and his family had been home only for three months, and the people were still not sure what to make of these strange, Yamani-like nobles. "They told you the rule, surely. Any time you go outside the castle or village, you take a horn. You never know when one of them monsters, centaurs or giants or whatever, will show its face."**

**Kel frowned. The legendary creatures that had returned to their world five years before had an unnerving way of showing up when they were least expected. For every one that was harmless or willing to get on with humans, there were fistfuls that weren't. Bands of men-at-arms now roamed throughout the fiefdom, searching for hostile visitors and listening for the horn call, which meant someone was in trouble.**

**I'm not going very far, she wanted to argue, but the Yamanis had taught her to obey a soldier's commands. **

Wyldon stopped his reading for a moment to tease Kel - "Well that didn't stop you from going after your refugees did it?! You were always a headstrong young girl." The majority of the circle who had spent time in the field with Kel nodded in agreement.

**She accepted the horn with a quiet thank-you and slung it over one shoulder. Checking that Lord Wyldon's letter was tucked securely in the front of her shirt, she left the road that led from the castle gate and headed through their orchards. Once past the cultivated trees she entered the woods, following a trail down to the water.**

**By the time she could see a glint of silver through the trees she had worked up a mild sweat. The day was warm and the walk was longer than she had thought it would be. When a rock worked its way into her shoe, she sat on a log to get it out.**

**"It's not right," she muttered to herself, undoing the laces that held the leather around her ankle. "You're a page for four years. That's how it's been done for centuries. Now they're going to change it?" When she up-ended the shoe and shook it, nothing fell out. She stuffed a hand inside, feeling around for the stone. "And just because I'm a girl? They ought to treat me the same. All I want is the same chance as the boys. No more, no less. That's right, isn't it?" She winced as a sharp edge nipped one of her fingers. Working more carefully, she wiggled the bit of rock out of a fold in the leather. "Probation is not fair, and knighthood training has to be fair.****"**

Jonathon felt that now would be the time for him to make an impromptu speech, just as Wyldon said, for he was also at fault for Kel's unfair probationary year.

"Lady Knight Keladry, I fear that I did you a grave misjustice in forcing you to take a probationary year; I am only glad that my fear for whiplash from the conservatives in my government did not stop you from trying for your shield. It's unfortunate, that I, the sole person who really aided and abetted Alanna in her efforts to become a knight, was so ignorant of you potential. And that I, whose own wife is such a fine warrior, could ignore your potential. As I have made known to you many times before, our realm owes you greatly for your feats as a Knight."

Jonathon's speech would never heal the pain Kel felt whenever she thought of her probationary year but she nodded in acknowledgement of his compliment. Of course she understood the conundrum which he had been in. It was only with the support of reluctant conservative nobles like Lord Wyldon that King Jonathon IV and Queen Thayet had consolidated their progressive rule. And without their other progressive social changes; such as compulsory and free education, the introduction of the Queen's Riders and the reformation of the King's Own, Kel could only imagine the backward state that Tortall would be in now.

**The stone was out; her mind was made up. If they couldn't treat her the same as they would the boys, then she wasn't going to settle for a half portion. She would have to become a warrior some other way.**

"Kel?!" exclaimed Owen, "you mean you were considering not coming to the Palace to train?! Well that would not have been jolly, would it?! Why ever did you change your mind?"

Kel simply replied "you'll see, you'll see."

**Kel sighed and put her shoe back on. The problem was that now she would have to wait. The Queen's Riders took volunteers when they were fifteen or older. The queen's ladies, those who were expected to ride, handle a bow, and deal with trouble at Queen Thayet's side, went to her in their fifteenth year as well. And who was to say Kel wouldn't be living in the Yamani Islands by then?**

**One thing she knew: convent school, the normal destination for noble girls her age, was not a choice.**

**Kel had no interest whatever in ladylike arts, and even less interest in the skills needed to attract a husband or manage a castle. Even if she did, who would have her? Once she'd overheard her sisters-in-law comment that no man would be interested in a girl who was built along the lines of a cow.**

Kel felt Dom tense beside her. He was awfully protective of his dear Lady Knight, and could not stand hearing insults about her, and neither could Neal. Dom knew that throughout Kel's time at the Palace his stupid Meathead of a cousin had taken it upon himself to be 'Kel's-virtue-protector'. Dom couldn't wait to see how Kel would react when she found that out; she hated other people fighting her battles! And Dom was sure it would come out; it seemed as if everything was going to be revealed in the next couple of days as they read these books.

**She'd made the mistake of repeating that comment to her mother, when Kel's plan to be a page had first come up. Her mother had gone white with fury and had put her daughters-in-law to mending several years' worth of old linens. It had taken a great deal of persuasion for Kel to convince her mother that her quest for knighthood did not mean she wanted to settle for second best, knowing she would never marry. Getting Ilane of Mindelan to agree to her being a page had been a negotiation every bit as complicated as what her father had done to get the Yamanis to sign the treaty.**

**And see the good that did me, Kel thought with disgust. Lord Wyldon offers me second best anyway, and I won't take it. I could have saved my breath talking Mama around.**

**She was ready to get to her feet when the sound of bodies crashing through the brush made her look up. Gruff voices reached her ear.**

**"Hurry up!" a boy growled from near the river. "Do you want us t'get caught?"**

**"The Cow's at home," replied a second boy's voice. "She stays there all morning."**

**Kel stood, listening. If they were on the lookout for her, then they were up to something bad. In just three months she had taught the local boys she was someone to respect. Kel grabbed a sturdy fallen branch and ran toward the voices. Racing into open ground between the trees and river, she saw three village boys. They were about to throw a wriggling cloth sack into the Domin.**

**Her mouth settled into a tight, angry line; her hazel eyes glittered. "Put that down!" she cried.**

All of Kel's year mates, and Wyldon himself groaned at this.

"Trust you Kel to try and get involved in some futile mission to protect the weak!" Groaned Neal, who was fed up of Kel's antics.

"They don't call me Protector for nothing, Meathead! And you weren't complaining when we were younger and I'd help you on futile missions to charm Yuki with your poetry. Now that's what I call helping the weak!" Kel sniped back cheekily.

**The boys whirled, startled, dropping their burden on a half-submerged tree limb. One of them punched the smallest in the shoulder. "Home all morning, eh?"**

**Kel shouted, "I know all of you! And you know the law in Mindelan-no killing of animals without the baron's leave!"**

**The biggest, taller than she by half a head, advanced. The other two were right behind him. "Who's to make us stop, Cow?"**

**The Yamanis had taught her well. She waded into the boys, using her club as an equalizer. She whacked them in the belly so they couldn't breathe, and on the collarbones and biceps so they couldn't raise their arms. One youth punched her face; he caught her on the outside of one eye. She changed her grip on her branch and swept his feet from under him, then stood on one of his arms.**

**Another lad grabbed a branch and swung at her; she blocked it with hers, then rammed the length of wood into his stomach. He doubled over, gasping. Kel shoved him into the third boy. Down they went in a tumble.**

Wyldon read these last lines with awe and pride in his voice. He knew she had been a fighter ever since she had proven herself to him, but he always found himself respecting her more and more everyday, the more he found out about her.

The progressive warriors in the room, especially the female warriors, were satisfied that Kel would be proving herself in this series; proving that she really was capable, even as a mildly untrained young girl.

**When they untangled themselves, they ran. Their comrade also chose to make his escape.**

**Kel looked around for the sack. The current had tugged the tree limb on which it rested out into the deeper, faster water at the center of the river. She didn't hesitate, but waded into the water. Kel was a good swimmer and the river here was fairly shallow. She doubted that whatever small creatures were struggling in the sack could swim.**

**Movement on the far bank made her look up. What she saw made her halt, cold water rushing around her thighs. Something black and strange-looking walked out from under the shelter of the trees. It looked like a giant furred spider nearly five feet tall, with one difference. The thing had a human head.**

"Oh gods Keladry," whispered Daine, "a spidren!"

Everyone in the room was muttering in agreement with Daine. Sure Kel was an impressive young girl, but she wouldn't be able to fight off a spidren unaided.

**It stared at Kel, then grinned broadly to reveal sharp teeth.**

**Her flesh crawled; hairs stood up on her arms and the back of her neck. Spidren, she thought, recognizing it from descriptions. Spidrens in our woods.**

**Like most of the legendary creatures that now prowled the human realms, they were virtually immortal, immune to disease and old age. They died only when something or someone took pains to kill them. They fed on animals and human blood. No one could get spidrens to make peace with human beings.**

Daine, the resident expert on immortals, and Numair, a secondary expert on immortals looked at each other in despair. In the aftermath of the Immortal's War, they had made it their personal mission to either continue the returning of all immortals to the Divine Realms, as was their original plan, or to help facilitate assimilation into society. Spidren's were really the most vile of creatures, but surely, surely, a strain of humanity remained within them; enough to allow for diplomatic relations between spidren and human alike.

**The thing reared up on its back legs, revealing a light-colored shaft at the base of its belly. From it the****spidren squirted a high-flying gray stream that soared into the air over the river. Kel threw herself to one side, away from the gray stream and the sack she was trying to catch. The stuff was like rope. She realized it was a web when it fell in a long line across the surface of the water. It had missed her by only a foot. The spidren bent and snipped the rope off from its belly spinneret with a clawed leg. Swiftly it began to wind the length of web around another clawed foot. As it dragged through the water, the sticky thing caught on the cloth sack. The spidren reeled in its catch as a fisherman might pull in a line.**

**Kel brought the horn up to her mouth. She blew five hard blasts and might have continued to blow until help came, as the spidren gathered up the sack. It discarded its web with one clawed foot, held the sack with a second, and reached into it with a third. The beast grinned, its eyes never leaving Kel, as it pulled out a wet and squirming kitten.**

Everyone shrieked! Poor Kel, having to witness the horrific death of innocent kittens. Daine, of course, felt pained most intently for the People.

Wyldon quickly read on, trying to quickly reach the part where Kel saved the day, as usual.

**The horn fell from the girl's lips as the spidren looked the kitten over. It smacked its lips, then bit the small creature in half and began to chew.**

**Kel screamed,**

As did everyone in the room,

**and groped on the river bottom with both hands for ammunition. Coming up with a stone in each fist, she hurled the first. It soared past the spidren, missing by inches. Her next stone caught it square in the head. It shrieked and began to climb the bluff that overlooked the river to its left, still holding the sack.**

**In the distance Kel heard the sound of horns. Help was on its way - for her, but not for those kittens.**

"Oh Protector of the Small," lamented Neal lyrically, "what ever would Tortall do without your selfless desire to save us all." Whilst said with the ever present bite of humour and sarcasm that Neal always spoke with, it was hard to find his comment totally satirical; as the circle would find out, Kel had proven herself to be an adequate Protector of the Small.

Kel glared at Meathead, looking like she was about to push him out of his chair, if not for baby Kelly bundled in his arms.

**She scrabbled for more stones and plunged across the river, battling the water to get to the same shore as the monster. It continued to climb the rocky face of the bluff until it reached the summit just as Kel scrambled onto the land.**

**Once she was on solid ground, she began to climb the bluff, her soaked feet digging for purchase in soft dirt and rock. Above, the spidren leaned over the edge of the bluff to leer at her. It reached into the sack, dragged out a second kitten, and began to eat it.**

**Kel still had a rock in her right hand. She hurled it as hard as she had ever thrown a ball to knock down a target. It smashed the spidren's nose. The thing shrieked and hissed, dropping the rest of its meal.**

**Kel's foot slipped. She looked down to find a better place to set it and froze. She was only seven feet above the water, but the distance seemed more like seventy to her.**

Wyldon paused, he obviously was very familiar with Kel's irrational phobia of heights. Kel noticed Wyldon's contemplation, and reminded him, "Well, Sir, at least you beat that fear out of me!"

Alanna wasn't sure she liked the sound of that… "Beat the — …?!"

George quickly placed his hand on Alanna's thigh; he had no idea how he was going to stop her from killing every single person in the room who had once done harm to her darling prodigy!

**A roar filled her ears and her head spun. Cold sweat trickled through her clothes. She clung to the face of the bluff with both arms and legs, sick with fear.**

**Leaving its sack on the ground, the spidren threw a loop of web around a nearby tree stump. When it was set, the creature began to lower itself over the side of the bluff. Its hate-filled eyes were locked on the girl, whose terror had frozen her in place.**

**Kel was deaf and blind to the spidren's approach. Later she could not recall hearing the monsters scream as arrows thudded into its flesh, just as she could not remember the arrival of her brother Anders and his men-at-arms.**

"You scared me half to death Kel," commented Anders, "you were clinging to the wall with such a dead look in your eyes, I really feared that the spidren had had a go at you!"

**With the spidren's death, its web rope snapped. The thing hurtled past Kel to splash into the river.**

**A man-at-arms climbed up to get her, gently prying her clutching fingers from their holds. Only when Kel was safely on the shore, seated on a flat rock, was she able to tell them why she had tried to kill a spidren with only stones for weapons. Someone climbed the bluff to retrieve the sack of kittens while Kel stared, shivering, at the spidren's body.**

**Her brother Anders dismounted stiffly and limped over to her. Reaching into his belt-pouch, he pulled out a handful of fresh mint leaves, crushed them in one gloved hand, and held them under Kel's nose. She breathed their fresh scent in gratefully.**

**"You're supposed to have real weapons when you go after something that's twice as big as you are," he told her mildly. "Didn't the Yamanis teach you that?****" ****During the years most of their family had been in the Islands, Anders, Inness, and Conal, the three oldest sons of the manor, had served the crown as pages, squires, then knights. All they knew of Kel's experiences there came in their family's letters.**

**"I had to do something," Kel explained.**

**"Calling for help and staying put would have been wiser," he pointed out. "Leave the fighting to real warriors. Here we are." A man-at-arms put the recovered sack into his hands. Anders in turn put the bag in Kel's lap.**

**Nervously she pulled the bag open. Five wet kittens, their eyes barely opened, turned their faces up to her and protested their morning's adventure. "I'll take you to our housekeeper," Kel promised them. "She knows what to do with kittens."**

**Once the animals were seen to and she had changed into a clean gown and slippers, Kel went to her father's study. With her came a small group of animals: two elderly dogs, three cats, two puppies, a kitten, and a three-legged pine marten.**

Daine, ever the animal-lover, couldn't help but love Kel a little bit more for this. She was always eager to take in strays, and she had heard first hand from Jump and Peachblossom, among others, how caring Kel was to her People.

"Gosh Kel, even before you came to the Palace you had a motley crew! Now look at you," Numair remarked.

Everyone in the circle who wasn't already looking at the protagonist of these scrolls directed their gaze to Kel.

Kel was sitting on the bench with Neal and Dom, but that wasn't the unusual thing; at her feet lay a mutt-like Jump, in her lap, lay a ginger cat who's hair was being lovingly caressed by Kel, on one of her shoulders perched a sparrow, and if you looked carefully at the windows of the Chamber one could see a row of fifteen or so more sparrows!

Daine chuckled; the animals understood that Kel was the centre of attention for this peculiar event; but they didn't realise that they too were gong to feature prominently in this strange tale.

**Kel gently moved them out of the way and closed the door before they could sneak into the room. Anders was there, leaning on a walking stick as he talked to their parents. All three adults fell silent and looked at Kel.**

**"I'll do it," she said quietly. "I want the training, and the right weapons. Anders was right. It was stupid to go after a spidren with stones."**

**"And if they send you home at the end of a year?" asked Ilane of Mindelan.**

**Kel took a deep breath. "Then I'll still know more than I do now," she said firmly.**

Once again, Wyldon couldn't help but admire Kel's attitude. Whilst Jon could only close his eyes in shame for his past regrets.

**Piers looked at his wife, who nodded. "Then we'd best pack," said Ilane, getting to her feet. "You leave the day after tomorrow." Passing Kel on her way to the door, her mother lightly touched the eye the village boy had hit. It was red, blue, and puffy - not the worst black eye Kel had ever gotten. "Let's also get a piece of raw meat to put on this," suggested the woman.**

**The next evening, Kel made her way to the stables to visit her pony, Chipper, to explain to him that the palace would supply her with a knight's mount. The pony lipped her shirt in an understanding way. He at least would be in good hands: Anders's oldest son was ready to start riding, and he loved the pony.**

**"I thought I might find you here," a voice said as Kel fed Chip an apple. She squeaked in surprise. For a man with a limp and a cane, Anders moved very quietly. "You know we'll take care of him."**

**Kel nodded and picked up a brush to groom the pony's round sides. "I know. I'll miss him all the same."**

**Anders leaned against a post. "Kel... "**

**She looked at him. Since the incident on the river the day before, she'd caught Anders watching her. She barely remembered him before their departure to the Islands, six years ago - he had already been a knight, handsome and distant in his armor, always riding somewhere. In the months since their return to Mindelan, she had come to like him. "Something the matter?" she asked.**

**Anders sighed. "Do you realize it's going to be hard? Maybe impossible? They'll make it tough. There's hazing, for one thing. I don't know when the custom started, but it's called 'earning your way.' It's just for the first-year pages. The senior ones make you run stupid little errands, like fetching gloves and picking up things that get knocked over. You have to do it. Otherwise it's the same as saying you don't have to do what the older pages did, as if you think you're better than they are. And older pages play tricks on the young ones, and some of them will pick fights. Stand up for yourself, or they'll make your life a misery.****"**

Cleon and Kel shared a quick moment remembering all the times he had required his 'pearl' or his 'glowing sunrise' to fetch his gloves, his bow, his meals. It had been meant fully in good faith, but they both knew that other parts of the hazing ritual would be revealed that would shock even Alanna, who had so much experience of hazing with the great oaf, Ralon!

**"In the rules they sent, fighting isn't allowed.****"**

Kel laughed out loud at this, as did Baird. "Kel, when did you ever listen to the rules about fighting? As I remember it, you 'fell down the stairs' and had to visit me for some serious healing weekly."

**"Of course it's forbidden. If you're caught, they punish you. That's expected. What you must never do is tattle on another page, or say who you fought with. That's expected, too. Tell them you fell down - that's what I always said. Otherwise no one will trust you. A boy told when I was a page. He finally left because no one would speak to him."**

**"But they'll punish me for fighting?"**

**"With chores, extra lessons, things like that. You take every punishment, whatever it's for, and keep quiet."**

**"Like the Yamanis," she said, brushing loose hairs from Chipper's coat. "You don't talk - you obey."**

**Anders nodded. "Just do what you're told. Don't complain. If you can't do it, say that you failed, not that you can't. No one can finish every task that's given. What your teachers don't want is excuses, or blaming someone else, or saying it's unfair. They know it's unfair. Do what you can, and take your punishment in silence."**

**Kel nodded. "I can do that, I think."****  
><strong>**Anders chuckled. "That's the strange thing - I believe you can. But, Kel - "****  
><strong>**Kel went to Chip's far side, looking at Anders over the pony's back. "What?"****  
><strong>**The young man absently rubbed his stiff leg. "Kel, all these things you learned in the Islands." "Yes?" she prodded when he fell silent again.**

**"You might want to keep them to yourself. Otherwise, the pages might think you believe you're better than they are. You don't want to be different, all right? At least, not any more different than you already are."**

**"Won't they want to learn new things?" she wanted to know. "I would."**

**"Not everyone's like you, Kel. Do what they teach you, no more. You'll save yourself heartache that way."**

**Kel smiled. "I'll try," she told him.**

**Anders straightened with a wince. "Don't be out here too long," he reminded her. "You're up before dawn."**

**Unlike normal dreams, in which time and places and people did strange things, this dream was completely true to Kel's memory. It began as she knelt before an altar and stared at the swords placed on it. The weapons were sheathed in pure gold rubbed as smooth and bright as glass. She was five years old again.**

Yuki, Shinko, Ilane, Piers and Kel smiled, although this dream would probably involve the horrific bandit attack on the Yaman Palace, it would also mention the great honour which Ilane received as a result of her actions. And it was this honour which largely facilitated the greatest marriage treaty of the Human Era.

**"They are the swords given to the children of the fire goddess, Yama," a lady-in-waiting beside Kel said, awe in her soft voice. "The short sword is the sword of law. Without it, we are only animals. The long sword is the sword of duty. It is the terrible sword, the killing sword." Her words struck a chord in Kel that left the little girl breathless. She liked the idea that duty was a killing sword. "Without duty," the lady continued, "duty to our lords, to our families, and to the law, we are less than animals."**

**Kel smelled burning wood. She looked around, curious. The large oil lamps that hung from the temple ceiling by thick cords smelled of perfume, not wood. Kel sniffed the air. She knew that fires were terrible on the Yamani Islands, where indoor walls were often paper screens and straw mats covered floors of polished wood.**

**The lady-in-waiting got to her feet.**

**The temple doors crashed open. There was Kel's mother, Ilane, her outer kimono flapping open, her thick pale hair falling out of its pins. In her hands she carried a staff capped with a broad, curved blade. Her blue-green eyes were huge in her bone-white face.**

**"Please excuse me," she told the lady-in-waiting, as calm and polite as any Yamani in danger, "but we must get out of here and find help. Pirates have attacked the cove and are within the palace."**

**There was a thunder of shod feet on polished wood floors. Swords and axes crashed through the paper screens that formed the wall behind the altar. Scanrans-men already covered in blood and grime - burst into the room, fighting their way clear of the screens and their wooden frames.**

Whilst the average group of Tortallan conservatives would find this scenario worrying, this circle of largely progressive individual's keenly awaited hearing about Ilane's triumphs, and perhaps, Kel's first encounter with fighting?

**An arm wrapped tight around Kel's ribs, yanking her from her feet. The lady-in-waiting had scooped her up in one arm and the swords in the other. Faster than the raiders she ran to Ilane of Mindelan.**

**The lady tumbled to the ground. Kel slid out the door on her belly. Turning, too startled to cry, she saw the lady at her mother's feet. There was an arrow in the Yamani woman's back.**

**Ilane bent over the dead woman and took the swords. Hoisting them in one hand, she swung her****weapon to her right and to her left. It sheared through the heavy cords that suspended five large oil lamps. They fell and shattered, spilling a flood of burning oil. It raced across the temple in the path of the raiders who were running toward them. When their feet began to burn, they halted, trying to put the fire out.**

**"Come on!" Kel's mother urged. "Hike up those skirts and run!"**

**Kel yanked her kimono up and fled with Ilane. They skidded and slipped over the polished floors in their Yamani sock-shoes, then turned down one corridor and another. Far down one passage they saw a new group of Scanrans. Kel and her mother ran around a corner. They tried another turning - it led to a dead end. They were trapped. The walls that now blocked them in on three sides were sturdy wood, too. They could have cut their way through paper ones.**

**Ilane turned. Scanrans armed with swords or axes blocked the way out.**

**Ilane thrust the gold swords into Kel's arms and pushed her into a corner, then stood before her. "Get down and be quiet!" she said, gripping her weapon in both hands. "I think I can hold them off with this."**

**Kel put the swords behind her and huddled. The men came at her mother, laughing and joking in Scanran. She peeked around the edge of her mother's kimono. At that moment Ilane swung the bladed staff-glaive, Kel remembered as it swung, they called it a glaive - in a wide side cut, slicing one pirate across the chest. Whipping it back to her left, she caught another of them in the throat. Blood struck Kel's face; even dreaming, she could smell it. Breathless, the sheathed swords poking into her back, she watched her mother lunge and retreat, using her skill and her longer weapon to hold the enemy off. Ilane killed a third and a fourth attacker before a squad of guardsmen raced around the corner to finish the rest.**

Silence stunned the room. Of course they had seen the Yamani ladies practice their glaives every morning in the practice yards, but to hear of Lady Ilane's prowess in such difficult circumstances was different.

Ilane, meanwhile, had adopted a Yamani mask, murmuring, "I did what any one of you would have done."

Kel thought lovingly of her mother, who was such an inspiration to Kel, really empowering her to want to learn to fight.

**When the pirates were dead, Kel's mother turned and reached a hand down to her. "Let's go find your father," she said quietly.**

**Kel grasped the hand, and let her mother pull her to her feet. Then Kel gathered up the golden swords that had been trusted to them.**

**When they faced their rescuers, the guards knelt as one. They bowed low to the woman and the girl, touching their heads to the bloody floor.**

Yuki and Shinko recognised these great marks of respect, in turn placing their palms on their thighs and bowing low to Lady Ilane.

**Kel woke, breathing fast, her eyes shining. Her heart raced; she trembled all over. The dream was not scary; it was exciting. She loved it. She loved that it had all been real.**

**I want to be like that, she told herself as she always did. I want to protect people. And I will. I will. I'll be a hero one day, just like Mama. Just like the Lioness.**

Alanna, who had been subdued since the representation of her conflict with Jon and Wyldon, became a little more cheerful at this.

"Kel, while at the time I only saw trying for my shield as an opportunity to do what I wanted to do in life, it makes me so proud to hear that I was an inspiration to you; so that you, in turn, could become an inspiration to many more young women like yourself."

Kel was of course was chuffed that a woman like the Lioness claimed that she, Kel, was an inspiration to Tortall. Never in her dreams did she imagine that people would have respect for the name Protector of the Small, just as they were in awe of the Lioness.

**Nobody will kill two kittens in front of me then.**

Wyldon placed the scrolls in his lap, having finished the second chapter of the scroll. He looked around searching for someone to read the next chapter, and was not surprised when Neal practically jumped out of his seat, dumping baby Kelly unceremoniously in Yuki's lap, and racing to grab the scroll.

"What?" he asked faux-innocently when everyone stared at him open mouthed."I really want to read Kel's first description of me!'

And with that he read, "**Chapter 2****…"**


	5. Not So Welcome

_Well, I hope that you__'__ve all enjoyed these two quick updates. I__'__m really enjoying writing this now, great procrastination! I am on holiday in two weeks so will hopefully get a lot written then :) Please review, I really appreciate it, it really does motivate me! And let me know if there is anything/anyone in particular you__'__d like to see!_

_Emily_

Neal took the scrolls from Wyldon, and had retook his seat next to Kel and his cousin. He was so eager to read this chapter, as he figured it would be about Kel meeting him and their first encounters! He was also keen to play a little trick on Wydlon.

The Stump** of Cavall **

"EXCUSE ME!" Wyldon shouted, he should have expected something like this from Nealan of Queenscove. Ever the little prankster.

"Sir, I swear, it's what it says! I would never call your Lordship such a name." Neal replied sweetly.

Wyldon only retorted "it better not come up again Nealan."

**nodded to Baron Piers, but his eyes were on Kel. He looked her over from top to toe, taking in every wrinkle and spot in her tunic and breeches and the fading bruise around her eye.**

"I could tell you were a troublemaker right from the start, Keladry." And all of Kel's year mates nodded in agreement.

Merric was the only one to comment "We were all curious to see what you'd be like; whether you'd be like a proper girl, you know? And we knew you spent some time overseas, so we thought it would be interesting to see if you were foreign, you know? Like, in the end, when I first lay my eyes on you, all I could think of was what a little trouble maker you looked like, you know?"

Kel nodded at Merric, whilst they hadn't gotten off on the best foot, their time at New Hope had really developed a lot of respect between them, or at least a sense Commander-subordinate, which finally realised itself in battle, although Merric was quite resentful.

**Kel met his gaze squarely. The training master was handsome, **

Neal stopped reading in horror; "KEL! How dare you betray our cause so."

Dom took it upon himself to reply to Neal this time: "Oh Meathead, I honestly don't know how you ended up at the Palace when Uncle should have abandoned you to the Players years ago!"

**for all that he was completely bald on top. He wore what was left of his light brown hair cropped very short. A scar - so red and puffy, it had to be recent - ran from the corner of his eye across his right temple to dig a track through his hair to his ear. His right arm rested in a sling. His eyes were brown, his mouth wide; his chin was square with a hint of a cleft in it. His big hands were marked with scars. He dressed simply, in a pale blue tunic, a white shirt, and dark blue hose. She couldn't see his feet behind the big desk, but she suspected that his shoes were as sensible as the rest of him.**

**Even the Yamanis would say he's got too much stone in him, she thought, looking at the scuffed toes of her boots. He needs water to balance his nature. Peering through her lashes at the training master, she added, **_**Lots **_**of water. A century or two of it, maybe.**

The Stump

"Nealan, honestly, couldn't you - .."

But Wyldon's protestations were cut off by a sharp _whack _as Yuki whipped out her shukusen and slapped Neal's hands harshly. And with that, Neal read the rest of the chapter with minimal subversiveness - oh who are we kidding. Yuki may have stopped Neal's insolence briefly but he wouldn't be stopped by a little Yamani fan, no matter how sharp and dangerous it could be.

**drummed his fingers on his desktop. At last he smiled tightly. "Be seated, please, both of you."**

**Kel and her father obeyed.**

**Wyldon took his own seat. "Well. Keladry, is it?" She nodded. "You understand that you are here on sufferance. You have a year in which to prove that you can keep up with the boys. If you do not satisfy me on that count, you will go home."**

**He's never said that to any boy, Kel thought, glad that her face would not show her resentment. He shouldn't be saying it to me. She kept her voice polite as she answered, "Yes, my lord."**

**"You will get no special privileges or treatment, despite your sex." Wyldon's eyes were stony. "I will not tolerate flirtations. If there is a boy in your room, the door must be open. The same is true if you are in a boy's room. Should you disobey, you will be sent home immediately."**

**Kel met his eyes. "Yes, sir." She was talkative enough with her family, but not with outsiders. The chill that rose from Wyldon made her even quieter.**

**Piers shifted in his seat. "My daughter is only ten, Lord Wyldon. She's a bit young for that kind of thing."**

**"My experience with females is that they begin early," the training master said flatly. **

A blast of purple magic shot at said training master, and he found himself sprawled on the cold tiles of the Chamber.

Alanna, obviously the perpetrator, sat there twiddling her thumbs. No one made an effort to help Wyldon, nor discipline Alanna, as you'd expect from Jon or George, as everyone was fuming at Wyldon for his comment.

**He ran a blunt-tipped finger down a piece of paper.**

**"It says here that you claim no magical Gift," stated Lord Wyldon. "Is that so?"**

**Kel nodded.**

**Lord Wyldon put down the paper and leaned forward, clasping his hands on his neatly ordered desk. "In your father's day, the royal household always dined in the banquet hall. Now our royal family dines privately for the most part. On great holidays and on special occasions, feasts are held with the sovereigns, nobles, and guests in attendance. The pages are required to serve at such banquets. Also, you are required to run errands for any lord or lady who asks.**

**"Has she a servant with her?" he asked Kel's father.****  
><strong>**"No," Piers replied.****  
><strong>**"Very well. Palace staff will tend her rooms. Have you any questions?" Wyldon asked Kel.****  
><strong>**Yes, she wanted to say. Why won't you treat me like you treat the boys? Why can't you be **_**fair**_**?**

**She kept it to herself. Growing up in a diplomat's house, she had learned how to read people. A good look at Wyldon's square, stubborn face with its hard jaw had told Kel that words would mean nothing to****this man. She would have to prove to him that she was as good as any boy. And she would.**

And, Wyldon admitted, she did.

**"No questions, my lord," she told him quietly.**

**"There is a chamber across the hall for your farewells," Wyldon told Piers. "Salma will come for Keladry and guide her to her assigned room. No doubt her baggage already is there." He looked at Kel. "Unpack your things neatly. When the supper bell rings, stand in the hall with the new boys. Sponsors - older pages who show the new ones how things are done - must be chosen before we go down to the mess."**

**After Kel said goodbye to her father, she found Salma waiting for her in the hall. The woman was short and thin, with frizzy brown hair and large, dark eyes. She wore the palace uniform for women servants, a dark skirt and a white blouse. A large ring laden with keys hung from her belt. As she took Kel to her new room, Salma asked if Kel had brought a personal servant.**

**When the girl replied that she hadn't, Salma told her, "In that case, I'll assign a servant to you. We bring you hot water for washup and get your fire going in the morning. We also do your laundry and mending, make beds, sweep, and so on. And if you play any tricks on the servants, you'll do your laundry and bed-making for the rest of the year. It's not our job to look after weapons, equipment, or armor, mind. That's what you're here to learn."**

**She briskly led the way through one long hall as she talked. Now they passed a row of doors. Each bore a piece of slate with a name written in chalk. "That's my room," Salma explained, pointing. "The ground floor here is the pages' wing. Squires are the next floor up. If you need supplies, or special cleaning and sewing, or if you are ill, come to me."**

**Kel looked at her curiously. "My brothers didn't mention you."**

**"Timon Greendale, our headman, **

George bowed his head in recognition of Timon. He had been a great asset to The Whisper Man's network, recruited when Alanna was but a page at the Palace. He had been one of the most long-serving members of George's time firstly at the Court of the Rogue and secondly as the King's Spymaster. Unfortunately he had been exposed as an undercover spy whilst working a mission in Rathuask, during the Scanran War.

Alanna was also reminiscing on Timon; especially the times he had helped her escape the Palace to rendez-vous with George!

**reorganized service here six years ago," Salma replied. "I was brought in five years back - just in time to meet your brother Conal. Don't worry. I won't hold it against you."**

**Kel smiled wryly. Conal had that effect on people.**

**Salma halted in front of the last door in the hall. There was no name written on the slate. "This is your room," she remarked. "I told the men to put your things here." She brushed the slate with her fingertips. "Your name has been washed off. I have to get my chalk. You may as well unpack."**

**"Thank you," Kel said.**

**"No need to thank me" was Salma's calm reply. "I do what they pay me to." She hesitated, then added, "If you need anything, even if it's just a sympathetic ear, tell me." She rested a warm hand on Kel's shoulder for a moment, then walked away.**

**Entering her room, Kel shut the door. When she turned, a gasp escaped before she locked her lips.**

Kel grimaced, remembering the state of her room on arrival.

**She surveyed the damage. The narrow bed was overturned. Mattress, sheets, and blankets were strewn everywhere. The drapes lay on the floor and the shutters hung open. Two chairs, a bookcase, a pair of night tables, and an oak clothespress were also upended. The desk must have been too heavy for such treatment, but its drawers had been dumped onto the floor. Her packs were opened and their contents tumbled out. Someone had used her practice glaive to slash and pull down the wall hangings. On the plaster wall she saw written: **_**No Girls! Go Home! You Won't Last!**_

Wyldon sighed in disgust. He had known that Kel had suffered some serious hazing as a Page, and he wasn't looking forward to learning about how pervasive this hazing was. He was sure he would be shocked at the lack of chivalry at the Palace.

**Kel took deep breaths until the storm of hurt and anger that filled her was under control. Once that was done, she began to clean up. The first thing she checked was the small wooden box containing her collection of Yamani porcelain lucky cats. She had a dozen or so, each a different size and color, each sitting with one paw upraised. The box itself was dented on one corner, but its contents were safe. Her mother had packed each cat in a handkerchief to keep it from breaking.**

**That's something, at least, Kel thought. But what about next time? Maybe she ought to ship them home.**

**As she gathered up her clothes, she heard a knock. She opened her door a crack. It was Salma. The****minute the woman saw her face, she knew something was wrong. "Open," she commanded. Kel let her in and shut the door.****  
><strong>**"You were warned this kind of thing might happen?" Salma asked finally.****  
><strong>**Kel nodded. "I'm cleaning up."**

**"I told you, it's your job to perform a warrior's tasks. **_**We **_**do this kind of work," Salma replied. "Leave this to me. By the time you come back from supper it will be as good as new. Are you going to change clothes?"**

**Kel nodded.**

**"Why don't you do that? It's nearly time for you to wait outside. I'll need your key once you're done in here."**

**Kel scooped up the things she needed and walked into the next room. Small and bare, it served as a dressing room and bathroom. The privy was behind a door set in the wall. There was little in here to destroy, but the mirror and the privy seat were soaped.**

**Kel shut the door. Before she had seen her room, she had planned to wear tunic and breeches as she had for the journey. She'd thought that if she was to train as a boy, she ought to dress like one. They were also more comfortable. Now she felt differently. She was a girl; she had nothing to be ashamed of, and they had better learn **_**that **_**first thing. The best way to remind them was to dress at least part of the time as a girl.**

Here, Alanna realised one of a few differences between her and Kel; when Alanna was a page and squire she had been ashamed of her womanhood - she had cut her hair and bound her breasts out of necessity, but she also refrained from acting womanly in private. She had tried for her knighthood as a boy in body and in soul; Kel was a different case. She was so brave, trying for her knighthood as a woman, open to prejudice and discrimination, and from the sounds of it, severe hazing.

**Stripping off her travel-stained clothes, she pulled on a yellow linen shift and topped it with her second-best dress, a fawn-brown cotton that looked well against the yellow. She removed her boots and put on white stockings and brown leather slippers.**

**Cleaning the mirror, she looked at herself. The gown was creased from being packed, but that could not be helped. She still had a black eye. There was nothing she could do with her mouse-brown hair: she'd had it cropped to her earlobes before she'd left home. Next trip to market, maybe I'll get some ribbons, she thought grimly, running a comb through her hair. Some nice, bright ribbons.**

**She grinned at her own folly. Hadn't she learned by now that the first thing a boy grabbed in a fight was hair? She'd lose chunks of it or get half choked if she wore ornaments and ribbons.**

**"Time," Salma called.**

**If she thought anything of the change in Kel's appearance, she kept it to herself. Instead she pointed to yet another piece of writing: **_**Girls Can't Fight! **_**Salma's mouth twisted wryly. "What do they think their mothers do, when the lords are at war and a raiding party strikes? Stay in their solars and tat lace?****"**

This time it was Thayet's turn to smile. She knew the very real effects of a war on women, and had experienced it thoroughly when she still lived in Sarain. She was so happy that even the common Tortallans were realising that women were strong; that Girls Can Fight!

**That made Kel smile. "My aunt lit barrels of lard and had them catapulted onto Scanran ships this summer."**

**"As would any delicately reared noblewoman." Salma opened the door. Once they had walked into the hall, she took the key from Kel and went about her business, nodding to the boys as they emerged from their rooms.**

**Kel stood in front of her door and clasped her hands so no one could see they shook. Suddenly she wanted to turn tail and run until she reached home.**

**Wyldon was coming down the hall. Boys joined him as he passed, talking quietly. One of them was a boy with white-blond hair and blue eyes, set in a face as rosy-cheeked as a girl****'****s.**

All of Kel's year mates groaned at the mention of Joren, Kel especially not eager to relive his torment.

Wyldon grimaced at the idea of the constant reminders he would have of his failing as a training master.

**Kel, seeing the crispness of his movements and a stubbornness around his mouth, guessed that anybody silly enough to mistake that one for a girl would be quickly taught his mistake. A big, cheerful-looking redheaded boy**

"Yay! I finally feature!" Jokes Cleon.

**walked on Wyldon's left, joking with a very tall, lanky youth.**

**A step behind the blond page and Wyldon came a tall boy who walked with a lion's arrogance. He was brown-skinned and black-eyed, his nose proudly arched. A Bazhir tribesman from the southern desert, Kel guessed. She noticed several other Bazhir among the pages, but none looked as kingly as this one.**

The King noted the presence of his own one-time Squire. He had heard he wasn't the most gracious of pages, but under his tutelage he had become a fine Knight and man.

**When the training master halted, there were only five people left in front of doors on both sides of him: four boys and Kel. Her next-door neighbor, a brown-haired boy liberally sprinkled with freckles, bowed to Wyldon. Kel and the others did the same; then Kel wondered if she ought to have curtsied. She let it go. To do so now, after bowing, would just make her look silly.**

**Wyldon looked at each of them in turn, his eyes resting the longest on Kel. "Don't think you'll have an easy time this year. You will work hard. You'll work when you're tired, when you're ill, and when you think you can't possibly work anymore. You have one more day to laze. Your sponsor will show you around this palace and collect those things which the crown supplies to you. The day after that, we begin."**

**"You." He pointed to a boy with the reddest, straightest hair Kel had ever seen. "Your name and the holding of your family."**

**The boy stammered, "Merric, sir - my lord. Merric of Hollyrose." He had pale blue eyes and a long, broad nose; his skin had only the barest summer tan.**

**The training master looked at the pages around him. "Which of you older pages will sponsor Merric and teach him our ways?"**

**"Please, Lord Wyldon?" Kel wasn't able to see the owner of the voice in the knot of boys who stood at Wyldon's back. "We're kinsmen, Merric and I."**

**"And kinsmen should stick together. Well said, Faleron of King's Reach." A handsome, dark-haired boy**

"Why thank you Kel!" came a cheer from the far end of the circle.

**came to stand with Merric, smiling at the redhead. Wyldon pointed to the freckled lad, Esmond of Nicoline, who was taken into the charge of Cleon of Kennan, the big redhead. Blond, impish Quinden of Marti's Hill was sponsored by the regal-looking Bazhir, Zahir ibn Alhaz. The next pairing was the most notable: Crown Prince Roald, the twelve-year-old heir to the throne, chose to show Seaver of Tasride around. Seaver, whose dark complexion and coal-black eyes and hair suggested Bazhir ancestors, stared at Roald nervously, but relaxed when the prince rested a gentle hand on his shoulder.**

Roald carefully considered his next words. "Kel, I really wish that I had thought to be your sponsor, it really would have made your time a lot easier, wouldn't it?"

Kel brushed off his concerns "don't worry Roald, if you'd've been my sponsor I wouldn't have had as much fun tormenting Meathead here!

**Only Kel remained. Wyldon demanded, "Your name and your fief?"**

**She gulped. "Keladry of Mindelan."**

Sorry guys, cut it off here, it was getting to be a super long chapter! Look forward to the rest of this next time, as well as an intimate chat between our favourite lovers, Dom and Kel!

Emily


	6. More Not So Welcome

_Continuation of last chapter :) Enjoy!_

**"Who will sponsor her?" asked Wyldon.**

**The handsome Zahir looked at her and sniffed. "Girls have no business in the affairs of men. This one should go home." He glared at Kel, who met his eyes calmly.**

**Lord Wyldon shook his head. "We are not among the Bazhir tribes, Zahir ibn Alhaz. Moreover, I requested a sponsor, not an opinion." He looked at the other boys. "Will no one offer?" he asked. "No beginner may go unsponsored."**

**The blond youth at Wyldon's side raised a hand. "May I, my lord?" he asked.**

**Lord Wyldon stared at him. "You, Joren of Stone Mountain?"**

**The youth bowed. "I would be pleased to teach the girl all she needs to know of life in the pages' wing."**

**Kel eyed him, suspicious. From the way a few older pages giggled, she suspected Joren might plan to chase her away, not show her around. She looked at the training master, expecting him to agree with the blond page.**

**Instead Lord Wyldon frowned. "I had hoped for another sponsor,****"**

Kel thanked the Gods that Wyldon had been sympathetic at this point; imagine what would have happened if Joren had been the only volunteer!

**he commented stiffly. "You should employ your spare hours in the improvement of your classwork and your riding skills."**

**"I thought Joren hated-" someone whispered.**

**"Shut up!" another boy hissed.**

**Kel looked at the flagstones under her feet. Now she was fighting to hide her embarrassment, but she knew she was failing. Any Yamani would see her shame on her features. She clasped her hands before her and schooled her features to smoothness. I'm a rock, she thought. I am stone.**

**"I believe I can perfect my studies and sponsor the girl," Joren said respectfully. "And since I am the only volunteer-"**

**"I suppose I'm being rash and peculiar, **_**again,**__**"**_

Neal found himself interrupting… himself? "And now, my friends, you will see the true meaning of chivalry. You see, when a mature, University-educated page from the Book of Gold makes an offer to be a sponsor, great things shall happen."

The room had silently agreed to ignore Neal and his dramatic tendencies.

**someone remarked in a drawling voice, "but if it means helping my friend Joren improve his studies, well, I'll just have to sacrifice myself. There's nothing I won't do to further the cause of book learning among my peers."**

**Everyone turned toward the speaker, who stood at the back of the group. Seeing him clearly, Kel thought that he was too old to be a page, **yet she couldn't help but be taken aback by how handsome this fine specimen appeared. If he were not half-divine then Kel didn't think she knew what the meaning of life was. He was gorgeously coloured, tall and fair skinned, with piercingly stunning emerald eyes and luscious brown locks…

"I did not, and would never say that, Meathead!" Kel rebutted, although silently she was reminded of her huge crush on Neal, and flushed intensely.

Dom noticing Kel's awkward reaction, and feeling a little sorry for the onslaught of humiliation to come, finally cut off Neal's rambling; "Ok Meathead, we get it, you love yourself… lets move on."

"Argh fine, …"

**He was tall, fair-skinned, and lean, with emerald eyes and light brown hair that swept back from a widow's peak.**

**Lord Wyldon absently rubbed the arm he kept tucked in a sling. "You volunteer, Nealan of Queenscove?"**

**The youth bowed jerkily. "That I do, your worship, sir." There was the barest hint of a taunt in Nealan's educated voice.**

**"A sponsor should be a page in his second year at least," Wyldon informed Nealan. "And you will mind your tongue."**

**"I know I only joined this little band in April, your lordship," the youth Nealan remarked cheerily, "but I have lived at court almost all of my fifteen years. I know the palace and its ways. And unlike Joren, I need not worry about my academics."**

**Kel stared at the youth. Had he always been mad,**

Kel's year mates found themselves agreeing with this statement. Neal certainly had a way with the Stump.

Alanna whistled, "I'm impressed Lady Knight! It took me a full hour to realise that Squire Neal was truly mad, but you had him cornered in minutes!"

**or did a few months under Wyldon do this to him? She had just arrived, and **_**she **_**knew better than to bait the training master.**

**Wyldon's eyebrows snapped together. "You have been told to mind your manners, Page Nealan. I will have an apology for your insolence."**

**Nealan bowed deeply. "An apology for general insolence, your lordship, or some particular offense?"**

**"One week scrubbing pots," ordered Lord Wyldon. "Be silent.****"**

Nealan threw out an arm like a player making a dramatic statement. "How can I be silent and yet apologise!"

**Nealan threw out an arm like a player making a dramatic statement. "How can I be silent and yet apologize?****"**

Everyone laughed at Neal and his Player-like antics.

For once in her life, Alanna found herself sympathising with Lord Wyldon, having spent 4 years trying to beat the insolence out of Neal.

_**"Two **_**weeks." Keladry was forgotten as Wyldon concentrated on the green-eyed youth. "The first duty for anyone in service to the crown is obedience."**

**"And I am a terrible obeyer," retorted Nealan. "All these inconvenient arguments spring to my mind, and I just have to make them."**

**"Three," Wyldon said tightly.**

**"Neal, shut it!" someone whispered.**

**"I could learn-" Kel squeaked. No one heard. She cleared her throat and repeated, "I can learn it on my own.****"**

Wyldon sighed; one of many examples of young Keladry being too bloody good at being a Knight!

**The boys turned to stare. Wyldon glanced at her. "What did you say?"**

**"I'll find my way on my own," Kel repeated. "Nobody has to show me. I'll probably learn better, poking around." She knew that wasn't the case - her father had once referred to the palace as a "miserable rat-warren" - but she couldn't let this mad boy get himself deeper into trouble on her account.**

**Nealan stared at her, winged brows raised.**

**"When I require your opinion," began Wyldon, his dark eyes snapping.**

**"It's no trouble," Nealan interrupted. "None at all, Demoiselle Keladry. My lord, I apologize for my wicked tongue and dreadful manners. I shall do my best not to encourage her to follow my example."**

**Wyldon, about to speak, seemed to think better of what he meant to say. He waited a moment, then said, "You are her sponsor, then. Now. Enough time has been wasted on foolishness. Supper."**

**He strode off, pages following like ducklings in their mother's wake. When the hall cleared, only Nealan and Keladry were left.**

**Nealan stared at the girl, his slanting eyes taking her in. Seeing him up close at last, Kel noticed that he had a willful face, with high cheekbones and arched brows. "Believe me, you wouldn't have liked Joren as a sponsor," Nealan informed her. "He'd drive you out in a week. With me at least you might last a while, even if I am at the bottom of Lord Wyldon's list. Come on." He strode off.**

"How kind of you, sir Meathead," Kel remarked faux-loftily.

**Kel stayed where she was. Halfway down the hall, Nealan realized she was not behind him. When he turned and saw her still in front of her room, he sighed gustily, and beckoned. Kel remained where she was.**

**Finally he stomped back to her. "What part of 'come on' was unclear, page?"**

**"Why do you care if I last a week or longer?" she demanded. "Queenscove is a ducal house. Mindelan's just a barony, and a new one at that. Nobody cares about Mindelan. We aren't related, and our fathers aren't friends. So who am I to you?"**

**Nealan stared at her. "Direct little thing, aren't you?"**

**Kel crossed her arms over her chest and waited. The talkative boy didn't seem to have much patience. He would wear out before she did in a waiting contest.**

"Hmph… that's not true Kel!"

"Oh really, Neal, wanna bet?"

"Done, see you in the mess after all this is over!"

Everyone just rolled their eyes at the classic Kel-Neal banter.

**Nealan sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "Look - you heard me say I've lived at court almost all my life, right?"**

**Kel nodded.**

**"Well, think about that. I've lived at court and my father's the chief of the realm's healers. I've spent time with the queen and quite a few of the Queen's Riders and the King's Champion. I've watched Lady Alanna fight for the crown. I saw her majesty and some of her ladies fight in the Immortals War. I know women can be warriors. If that's the life you want, then you ought to have the same chance to get it as anyone else who's here." He stopped, then shook his head with a rueful smile. "I keep forgetting I'm not in a university debate. Sorry about the speech. Can we go eat now?"**

**Kel nodded again. This time, when he strode off down the hall, she trotted to keep up with him.**

**When they passed through an intersection of halls, Nealan pointed. "Note that stairwell. Don't let anyone tell you it's a shortcut to the mess or the classrooms. It heads straight down and ends on the lower levels, underground."**

**"Yessir."****  
><strong>**"Don't call me sir."****  
><strong>**"Yessir."****  
><strong>**Nealan halted. "Was that meant to be funny?"****  
><strong>**"Nossir," Kel replied, happy to stop and catch her breath. Nealan walked as he spoke, briskly.**

**Nealan threw up his hands and resumed his course. Finally they entered a room filled with noise. To Kel it seemed as if every boy in the world was here, yelling and jostling around rows of long tables and benches. She came to a halt, but Nealan beckoned her to follow. He led her to stacks of trays, plates, napkins, and cutlery, grabbing what he needed. Copying him, Kel soon had a bowl of a soup thick with leeks and barley, big slices of ham, a crusty roll still hot from the oven, and saffron rice studded with raisins and almonds. She had noticed pitchers of liquids, bowls of fruit, honey pots, and platters of cheese were already on the tables.**

**As they stopped, looking for a place to sit, the racket faded. Eyes turned their way. Within seconds she could hear the whispers. "Look." "The Girl." "It's **_**her." **_**One clear voice exclaimed, "Who cares? She won't last."**

**Kel bit her lip and stared at her tray. Stone, she thought in Yamani. I am stone.**

**Nealan gave no sign of hearing, but marched toward seats at the end of one table. As they sat across from one another, the boys closest to them moved. Two seats beside Nealan were left empty, and three next to Kel.**

**"This is nice," Nealan remarked cheerfully. He put his food on the table before him and shoved his tray into the gap between him and the next boy. "Usually it's impossible to get a bit of elbow room here."**

**Someone rapped on a table. Lord Wyldon stood alone at a lectern in front of the room. The boys and Kel got to their feet as Wyldon raised his hands. "To Mithros, god of warriors and of truth, and to the Great Mother Goddess, we give thanks for their bounty," he said.**

**"We give thanks and praise," responded his audience.**

**"We ask the guidance of Mithros in these uncertain times, when change threatens all that is time-honored and true. May the god's light show us a path back to the virtues of our fathers and an end to uncertain times. We ask this of Mithros, god of the sun."**

**"So mote it be," intoned the pages.**

**Wyldon lowered his hands and the boys dropped into their seats.**

**Kel, frowning, was less quick to sit. Had Lord Wyldon been talking about her? "Don't let his prayers bother you," Nealan told her, using his belt-knife to cut his meat. "My father says he's done nothing but whine about changes in Tortall since the king and queen were married. Eat. It's getting cold."**

**Kel took a few bites. After a minute she asked, "Nealan?"**

**He put down his fork. "It's Neal. My least favorite aunt calls me Nealan."**

**"How did his lordship get those scars?" she inquired. "And why is his arm in a sling?"**

**Neal raised his brows. "Didn't you know?"**

**If I knew, I wouldn't ask, Kel thought irritably, but she kept her face blank.**

**Neal glanced at her, shook his head, and continued, "In the war, a party of centaurs and hurroks-"**

**"Hur - what?" asked Kel, interrupting him.**

**"Hurroks. Winged horses, claws, fangs, very nasty. They attacked the royal nursery. The Stump-****"**

"Neal, I command you to stop!" ordered Lord Wyldon.

Neal protested, "But sir, it's in the dialogue! I must read it authentically, the Great Mother Goddess demanded it of me."

Wyldon just glared at Neal until he continued reading.

**"The what?" Kel asked, interrupting again. She felt as if he were speaking a language she only half understood.**

**Neal sighed. There was a wicked gleam in his green eyes. "I call him the Stump, because he's so stiff.****"**

"Don't worry sir, you've really softened up nice and jolly recently!" Came loyal Owen's response.

**He might be right, but he wasn't very respectful, thought Kel. She wouldn't say so, however. She wasn't exactly sure, but probably it would be just as disrespectful to scold her sponsor, particularly one who was five years older than she was.**

**"Anyway, Lord Wyldon fought off the hurroks and centaurs all by himself. He saved Prince Liam, Prince Jasson, and Princess Lianne. In the fight, the hurroks raked him. My father managed to save the arm, but Wyldon's going to have pain from it all his life."**

**"He's a hero, then," breathed Kel, looking at Wyldon with new respect.**

**"Oh, he's as brave as brave can be," Neal reassured her. "That doesn't mean he isn't a stump." He fell silent and Kel concentrated on her supper. Abruptly Neal said, "You aren't what was expected."**

**"How so?" She cut up her meat.**

**"Oh, well, you're big for a girl. I have a ten-year-old sister who's a hand-width shorter. And you seem rather quiet. I guess I thought the girl who would follow in Lady Alanna's footsteps would be more like her.****"**

"And just what does that mean, Squire?" growled said Lioness.

"I am no longer a Squire thank you very much, I am Sir Nealan of Queenscove!" he protested before continuing to read, eager to get to the juicy parts of Kel's so-far boring tale.

**Kel shrugged. "Will I get to meet the Lioness?" She tried not to show that she would do anything to meet her hero.**

**Neal ran his fork around the edge of his plate, not meeting Kel's eyes. "She isn't often at court. Either she's in the field, dealing with lawbreakers or immortals, or she's home with her family.****"**

"Or she's in self-imposed exile cause she's had a very reasonable and rational argument with her King," Alanna pointed out, internally thinking of their previous disagreement and her self-imposed exile to the deserts of the Bazhir tribes.

**A bell chimed. The pages rose to carry their empty trays to a long window at the back of the room, turning them over to kitchen help. "Come on. Let's get rid of this stuff, and I'll start showing you around."**

**Salma found them as they were leaving the mess hall. She drew Kel aside and gave her two keys. One****was brass, the other iron. "I'm the only one with copies of these," Salma told her quietly. "Even the cleaning staff will need me to let them in. Both keys are special. To open your door, put the brass one in the lock, turn it left, and whisper your name. When you leave, turn the key left again. The iron key is for the bottom set of shutters. It works the same as the door key. Lock the shutters every time you leave, or the boys will break in that way. Leave the small upper shutters open for ventilation. Only a monkey could climb through those. Don't worry if any of the boys can pick locks. Anyone who tries will be sprayed in skunk-stink. That should make them reconsider."**

**Kel smiled. "Thank you, Salma."**

**The woman nodded to her and Neal, and left them.**

**Neal walked over to Kel. "If they can't wreck your room, they'll find other things to do," he murmured. When Kel raised her eyebrows at him, he explained, "I learned to read lips. The masters at the university were always whispering about something.****"**

Neal paused, waiting for Wyldon's outrage and realisation, but there was silence.

Then he noticed Wyldon open his mouth, and very clearly say silently, "Meathead."

**Kel rucked the keys into her belt-purse. "I'll deal with the other things as they come," she said firmly. "Now, where to?"**

**"I bet you'd enjoy the portrait gallery. If you're showing visitors around, it's one of the places they like to go."**

**After leading Kel past a bewildering assortment of salons, libraries, and official chambers, Neal showed her the gallery. He seemed to know a story about every person whose portrait was displayed there. Kel was fascinated by his knowledge of Tortall's monarchs and their families; he made it sound as if he'd known them all personally, even the most ancient. She stared longest at the faces of King Jonathan and Queen Thayet. She could see why the queen was called the most beautiful woman in Tortall, but even in a painting there was more to her than looks. The girl saw humor at the back of those level hazel eyes and determination in the strong nose and perfectly shaped mouth.**

**"She's splendid," Kel breathed.**

Thayet nodded graciously in recognition of Kel's compliment of her beauty but was more appreciative of her comments on her strength and personality.

**"She is, but don't say that around the Stump," advised Neal. "He thinks she's ruined the country, with her K'miri notion that women can fight and her opening schools so everyone can learn their letters. Anything new gives my lord of Cavall a nosebleed.****"**

"Your Majesty, Commander Buriram, forgive me. You have both more than proven yourselves to me." Wyldon quickly said, before anyone, particularly anyone endowed with purple fire, could retaliate.

**"Still determined to go to war with the training master, Nealan?" inquired a soft, whispery voice behind Kel.**

**She whirled, startled, and found she was staring at an expanse of pearl-gray material, as nubbly as if it were a mass of tiny beads melted together. She stumbled back one step and then another. The pearl-gray expanse turned dark gray at the edges. Looking down, Kel saw long, slender legs ending in lengthy digits, each tipped with a silver claw.**

**She backed up yet another step and tilted her head most of the way back. The creature was fully seven feet tall, not counting the long tail it used to balance itself, and it was viewing her with fascination. Its large gray slit-pupiled eyes regarded her over a short, lipless muzzle.**

**Kel's jaw dropped.**

**"You're staring, Mindelan," Neal said dryly.**

**"As am I," the creature remarked in that ghostly voice. "Will you introduce us?"**

**"Tkaa, this is Keladry of Mindelan," said Neal. "Kel, Tkaa is a basilisk. He's also one of our instructors in the ways of the immortals."**

**Kel had seen immortals other than the spidren on the riverbank, but she had never been this close to one. And it - he? - was to be one of her teachers?**

**"We basilisks are travelers and gossips," Tkaa remarked, as if he had read her mind. "I earn my keep here by educating those who desire a more precise knowledge of those immortals who have chosen to settle in the human realms."**

**"Yes, sir," Kel said, breathless. She started to curtsy, remembered that a page bowed, and tried to do****both. Neal braced her before she could topple over. Once she had regained her balance, the red-faced Kel bowed properly.**

**"I am pleased to meet you, Keladry of Mindelan," the basilisk told her as if he hadn't noticed her clumsiness. **

"Tkaa is always such a gentleman! Where is he, George? Is he off on one of your missions?" Daine inquired.

George replied "Well, without revealing the secrets of Your Majesty's spy network, he is visiting a foreign official in the Copper Isles on official and private business."

Those with the knowledge recognised this as George checking up on his daughter and three grandchildren in the Copper Isles.

Things were certainly very interesting at the moment, what with a father battling against his daughter in the eternal espionage wars. Aly had learnt everything she knew from her father, so one would expect George to have the upper hand, but it seemed that Aly had inherited her mother's stout determination to self-teach as well as many of her godsparents and family friends' talents!

Alanna took a moment to think about her daughter and grandchildren. Although they had only recently returned from the Copper Isles, as part of the foreign delegation at Queen Dove's coronation, Alanna desperately wanted to see her daughter again. The fact that she was even considering the lengthy sea trip to the Copper Isles was a testament to that.

**"I shall see you both the day after tomorrow." With a nod to Kel and to Neal, he walked out of the gallery, tail daintily raised.**

**Neal sighed. "We'd better get back to our rooms. Tomorrow's a busy day." He led her back to her room, pointing out his own as they passed it. "We'll meet in the mess hall in the morning," he told her.**

**Kel used the key as Salma had directed, and entered her room. Everything was in place, her bed freshly made up, curtains and draperies rehung. A faint scent of paint still drifted from the walls. "Gods of fire and ice, bless my new home," she whispered in Yamani. "Keep my will burning as hot as the heart of the volcano, and as hard and implacable as a glacier."**

**A wave of homesickness suddenly caught her. She wished she could hear her mother's low, soothing voice or listen to her father read from one of his books.**

Kel looked lovingly at her parents, who returned her subtle yet passionate gaze. She had missed them greatly the 8 years she was at the Palace and throughout her time in the North, and especially recently as they spent more and more time in the Yamani Isles.

She was glad that they were at the Palace to read about her time as a page, Squire and young knight so they could share this experience together.

**Emotion is weakness, Kel told herself, quoting her Yamani teachers. I must be as serene as a lake on a calm day. It was hard to control her feelings when so much was at stake and she was so far from home.**

**But control her feelings she would. If anyone here thought to run her off, they would find she was tougher than they expected. She was here to stay.**

**To prove it, she carefully unpacked each porcelain lucky cat and set it on her mantelpiece.**

**Only when she had placed each of them just so did she scrub her face and put on her nightgown. Climbing into bed, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She imagined a lake, its surface as smooth as glass. This is my heart, she thought. This is what I will strive to be.**

Neal rolled the scrolls up, and instead of passing them onto someone else to read, suggested that they take a lunch break: "It's been hours since we started reading, and I for one am famished. Raoul, should we go to the Own's mess, it certainly seems to be the largest hall where we can all dine together and discuss what we've read so far!"

Raoul nodded in agreement and led the party out of the hall.

Kel and Dom lingered so that they could have a private word.


	7. Breaking For Lunch

Breaking for lunch

As the last of the circle left the room, Kel and Dom remained, eager to snatch a moment of alone time together. These past few hours had been quite strenuous on Kel, and she knew that it would only get worse, much worse. When the harder times came, she wasn't sure she would be able to refrain from finding comfort in her sweetheart - but at the same time, she wasn't sure that she was ready to reveal her relationship to half the court!

Dom had similar feelings. Even the slightest mention of Kel being in danger in the scrolls set his heart racing and his hand twitching for hers. It broke his heart to think about the fact that he may not be able to comfort her when it came to more tenuous topics, like Lalasa's rape and the Scanran War.

Kel and Dom had remained seated, but now Dom was happy that he could reach for her hand. He broke the silence, beginning "Kel, I can't believe I'm finally going to read about your experiences at the Palace as a young girl. This is pretty much a life dream fulfilled for me. I'm just really worried about how I'm going to cope, and obviously, how you are going to cope?"

"Dom, of course, I feel the same way. I'm so nervous about everyone reading about my crushes, my failures, my insecurities, even my monthly's for goddesses sake." At this, Kel flushed.

However, Dom eased her worries "Don't worry Kel, at least it's mainly your close friends and family in the chamber, and also, I'm sure we could have a word with the Goddess and ask her to remove the more personal aspects of your history from the scrolls?"

Kel silently affirmed this. But vocalised her next worry; "Dom, we need to consider revealing our relationship to everyone? No one knows about us yet; not Neal, not my parents, not even Raoul."

Kel and Dom continued to discuss what to do about their courtship, for of course, they not only wanted to share this with their friends but they wanted the opportunity to be open about their feelings for each other in such close proximity with others. However, they had to consider what this would do to both their reputations. People would assume that Dom had taken Kel's virtue when she was a squire. They would assume that Kel slept her way into her role as Lady Knight Commander. They would also question their working relationship, as Dom was Captain of Third Company, and thus her direct subordinate. In the end, they decided they would tell her parents about their relationship, as well as Raoul once they read about her becoming a squire and meeting Dom. Meanwhile, they'd hopefully surprise everyone, especially Meathead, with the news of their relationship some time later on. This would annoy Neal especially, and could be quite a fun little game to play.

Meanwhile, in the mess hall, individual groups were reflecting on their own experiences with Kel and at the Palace themselves.

Alanna, Jon, Raoul and Gary reminisced about their time as pages together.

Raoul's booming voice could be heard across the room; "I remember when you were but a scrawny little git, Alan!"

Gary quickly commented "Ha, she still is, old friend. Look at her, nothing much as changed!"

Talk then shifted to hazing, as Alanna recounted her frequent 'trips down the staircase' with Ralon. It was surreal to read about Kel's time as a page, as it brought back memories of their times as pages. Sometimes Alanna wish she could re-do it all, change events, even relive moments. But in the end, she knew that she wouldn't be able to stand everyone reading her thoughts. Kel would do it, if it meant changing policies and opinions about female knights, and female empowerment, but Alanna recognised that she really wasn't the same kind of woman as Kel, and her desire to be a knight truly had been a selfish desire, rather than a desire to serve and protect the vulnerable.

At the table across, a different set of year mates were discussing the exact same thing, separated only by decades.

Neal couldn't help but think about his first meeting with Kel. Did he know then what an extraordinary woman she would become?  
>Cleon was also absorbed in thought about the woman Kel once was, and what she had meant to him. Oh joy, he thought, we're going to have half of Corus' court read about our own courtship!<p>

The only thing running through Owen's mind was 'jolly hell Kel had it rough!' He couldn't wait to read more about the girl who had inspired him.

All of the knights were brought out of their reminiscing by Kel entering the mess hall, and grabbing a plate. She stood on the dais and announced; "Let's head back to the Chamber and read some more, I for one can't get enough at the moment! Although I'm sure to be more hesitant later…"

Grabbing her plate, she tapped Wyldon on the shoulder, requesting to have a chat with him, as everyone else filed back into the Chamber.

"Wyldon, I want you to remember that no matter what happens in these books, I absolutely forgive you for your treatment of me as a page. I really do think we've gotten over all of this, during the Scanran War. And you know that I have come to respect you greatly."

"As you know that I have come to respect you greatly, Lady Knight," was Wyldon's simple but meaningful response.

Wyldon and Kel re-entered the Chamber, reflecting on their camaraderie over the past few years since Kel's knighthood.

Kel re-took her seat next to Dom and Neal and noticed that Alanna had taken the scroll; she wasn't sure this was the best idea, as her first few months at the Palace did not go smoothly! Kel had no choice though, as the Lioness read out "**Chapter 3: The Practice Courts…**."


	8. The Practice Courts

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"**The Practice Courts," **read Alanna.

**The next morning Kel heard the chatter of birds. She crept over to her open window and peered outside. It was nearly dawn, with the barest touch of light coloring the sky. Before her was a small courtyard with a single bedraggled tree growing at its center. On it perched house sparrows, drab in their russet brown and tan feathers, the males with stern black collars. Several birds pecked at the circle of earth around the tree. Kel watched them as the pearly air brightened. Poor things, she thought, they're hungry.**

Neal quickly sniped, "Not for long, oh dear Mother!"

Kel elbowed Neal in reaction to his use of the Own's nickname for her! She was supposedly notorious for her inability to stop mothering her friends and apparently her animals too.

**In her clothespress she had stowed the last of the fruitbread Mindelan's cook had given her for the journey south. Kel retrieved it and broke it up into crumbs, then dumped it on the courtyard stones. She was watching the sparrows devour it when the first bell rang and someone rapped on her door. She opened it and said a cheerful good morning to the servant who stood there with a pitcher of hot water.**

**"Good is as good does, Page Keladry," he said, his long face glum. He placed his burden on her desk, "I'm Gower. I'm to look after you.****"**

Kel smiled fondly in memory of her dear servant! She hadn't heard from Gower in a while, actually, so spoke up: "Oh, Lalasa, I haven't heard from your Uncle in months! We must arrange a time for me to visit him, perhaps he could come to lunch at your dress shop once we finish off these scrolls?"

Lalasa smiled immediately at Kel's characteristic compassion for all people, especially those who had been a great part of her life. Gower had helped Kel deal with the mundane in the harder months when had just started out as a page. She knew Gower would be thrilled to see Kel, and told Kel just this.

**He began to sweep out the hearth as Kel took the water into her dressing room.**

**A new fire was laid when she returned to the main room, her face washed and her teeth clean. "If you've anything special you require, soap or cloths or such, tell me," Gower said sorrowfully. "Within reason, of course."**

**Kel blinked at him. She'd never met anyone this gloomy. "Thank you, Gower," she replied, intimidated. "I don't need anything just yet."**

**"Very good, miss," he said, then shook his head. "I mean, Page Keladry."**

**She sighed with relief when he left, and hurried to dress.**

**Undiscouraged by Gower, she wished Neal a good morning**

Alanna broke off reading at this point to let out a hearty roar of laughter.

"Unfortunately, young Kel, as you will soon find out in this scroll, Neal is not exactly a morning person! And he will certainly discourage you more than poor Gower."

Dom took tho opportune moment to insert his own comment about his dear cousin; "Ha! Neal, a morning person! This one time, when I was visiting Queenscove in the break between University classes and my preliminary training with the Own. Neal must have been about 13, I would have been 16, I thought it would be funny to wake Neal up just after the mid-night bell, and convince him it was morning time."

"Okay Dom, okay, I think that's enough from you," Neal quickly interrupted.

Alanna and Kel, as well as most of the others in the room were not to be so easily discouraged; "Oh no, do carry on Dom," insisted Neal's year mates and even his father.

Overly-enthusiastically, Dom began to recount how poor young Neal had been woken to Dom ringing a fake bell just outside Neal's window nine times, so that Neal would think he had slept through the dawn bell, through breakfast, and was about to miss his sword practice for the day! Neal, the ever passionate student, hurriedly bathed. It seemed Dom had somehow convinced a rather beautiful maid servant to stay up and draw Neal a bath, and serve him breakfast - however would he have done that, Kel wondered sarcastically, knowing Dom was quite the ladies man - Neal proceeded to get changed and hurried down the corridor to the armoury to suit up. Here, Dom explained, Neal was curious as to the seemingly empty corridors, hall and armoury, so rushed off to his parents' suite to inquire whether some change to schedule had been made. Of course, Neal being Neal had made quite the racket, waking up his younger sister, Jessamine who was 8 at the time. Baird and Wilina were very annoyed at Neal for disturbing the peace. Neal was more confused as to how he had been deceived into believing it was morning.

"And that is the story of how Neal started wearing ear plugs to bed," concluded Dom.

Everyone enjoyed this story of Dom's, appreciating that this mildly tame prank was a predecessor to the greatly more wild pranks that the Own were notorious for.

**when she found him in the mess hall. He looked at her through bleary eyes and mumbled, "There's nothing good about it." Kel shook her head and ate breakfast in silence.**

**The day flew by. It began underground, where the palace stores were kept. A tailor took Kel's measurements. Then his assistant dumped a load of garments into her arms. She got three sets of practice clothes, sturdy tan cotton and wool garments to be worn during the morning. She also received three changes of the pages' formal uniform-red shirt and hose, gold tunic - to be worn in the afternoon and at royal gatherings. Shoes to match her formal gear were added; her family had supplied boots for riding and combat practice. Neal took the cloaks and coats she was given for cold weather.**

**Once she had stowed her things, Neal took her for another tour. They spent the morning inside, visiting the classrooms, libraries, indoor practice courts, and supply rooms like the pages' armory on the first level underground. After lunch, Neal took her to the outdoor practice courts and stables; the gardens, where she might wait on guests; and last of all, the royal menagerie. That night she dreamed of the hooting calls of the howler monkeys from the Copper Isles and the cluttering of brightly colored finches.**

**The next day she woke not to the gaudy finches' calls or the songs of Yamani birds, but to the friendly gossip of the courtyard sparrows. In hopes of seeing them again, she'd swiped a couple of rolls from the mess hall. Now she tore the rolls up and put the scraps outside the window for the birds.**

It was at this moment that Daine noticed the sparrow's had been silent these past minutes of reading. She looked to the sill where they had been sitting, and noticed from the corner of her eye one Lady Knight tossing chunks of bread under her chair, where she had amassed a menagerie of hungry animals. Daine could only presume that Kel had, once again, swiped some rolls from the mess hall. With a smile on her face, Daine's attention returned to Alanna's voice.

**As she finished, the bell rang. Gower rapped on her door as he'd done the day before, bringing hot water. Once he had cleaned the hearth and gone, Kel got dressed and ran to the mess hall. Her first day as a page had begun.**

**After breakfast, the pages flocked to one of the practice yards. Kel would take her first steps on the path to knighthood in these wood-fenced bare-earth rectangles and their adjoining equipment sheds. I'll work hard, she promised herself. I'll show everyone what girls can do.**

"Wow Kel, you had such a jolly attitude on your first day! All I could think of was the embarrassment, which was not jolly, and the bruises I received, which was definitely not jolly," said, you guessed it, Owen, with admiration.

Wyldon also couldn't help but feel ashamed again, that Kel really did have such a positive attitude on her first day, and he had done everything in his power to destroy that.

**Two Shang warriors, masters of unarmed combat, awaited the pages in the first yard. One of them sat on the fence, looking them over with pale, intelligent eyes. Her short-cropped tight gray curls framed a face that was dainty but weathered. She was clothed in undyed breeches and a draped, baggy jacket.**

Everyone in the room sensed a change in Alanna's tone, marked harshly by huge intake of air; but only Jon, Raoul, Gary, Buri, George and Thayet recognised the sombre mood which engulfed Alanna.

Alanna was, of course, thinking about Liam; the only man - not in this room - that she had ever loved. Eda had trained Liam; Eda had been the one to deliver his devastating farewell letter to Alanna. Eda, although you couldn't tell it from her appearance, was soft at heart. Eda had been the one to comfort Alanna through the harsh reality of death; a reality which had become far too real during that dark period.

Jon, too, couldn't help but think about the day of his coronation, when Liam had taken at least a dozen arrows for him, securing him and ensuring that he reigned for more than mere minutes. He knew how much Liam had meant to Alanna in those months on the trail to the Dominion Jewel, and how he had comforted her where Jon had failed.

George squeezed his wife's thigh, giving her the courage she needed to keep reading.

**The other Shang warrior stood at the center of the yard, his big hands braced on his hips. He was a tall Yamani, golden-skinned, with plump lips and a small nose. His black eyes were lively, particularly for a Yamani. His black hair was cropped short on the sides and longer on top. His shoulders were heavy under his undyed jacket. Both he and the woman wore soft, flexible cloth shoes.**

**"For those who are new," he said, no trace of accent in his clear, mellow voice, "I am Hakuin Seastone, the Shang Horse. My colleague, who joined me this summer, is Eda Bell, the Shang Wildcat."**

**"Don't go thinking you can bounce me all over the ground just because I look like somebody's grandmother," the woman said dryly. "Some grandchildren need more raising than others, and I supply it." She grinned, showing very white teeth.**

**Kel saw the redheaded Merric swallow. She agreed: the Wildcat looked tough.**

**"You older lads, pair up and go through the first drill," ordered Hakuin. "Grandmother here will keep an eye on you. As for you new ones... " He beckoned them over to a corner of the yard. Once they stood before him, the man continued, "Your first and most important lesson is, learn how to fall. Slap the ground as you hit, and roll. Like this." He fell forward, using his arms to break his fall. The boys jumped; the sound and the puff of dust he raised made the fall appear more serious than it was.**

**The Horse got to his feet and held a hand out to blond Quinden. When the boy took it, he found himself soaring gently over Hakuin's hip. Only after he landed did the boy remember to slap the ground.**

**"You have to do that earlier, as you hit," said Hakuin gently, helping Quinden up. "Now." He beckoned to Kel and offered a hand.**

Kel didn't really want to relive the embarrassment of this time. For although she had proven herself, she had exposed herself to abuse from her peers.

**She took it, meaning to let him throw her as he had Quinden, but the moment she felt his tug, six years of Yamani training took over. She turned, letting her back slide into the curve of his pulling arm as she gripped him with both hands and drew him over her right hip.**

Ilane and Piers looked at their daughter glowing with pride. They knew that in the next week as they read these scrolls, they wouldn't stop feeling proud of their extraordinary daughter.

**He faltered, then steadied, and swept Kel's feet from under her. She released his arm, then tucked and rolled forward as she hit the ground. She surged back up again and turned to face him, setting herself for the next attack.**

Alanna's striking purple eyes darted to Kel's training master. Wyldon felt her judgement pierce him. Wyldon sighed heavily. The worst was yet to come he though; preparing himself for the inevitable onslaught.

**He stood where she had left him, smiling wryly. Horrified, Kel laid her hands flat on her thighs and bowed. She expected a swat on the head or a bellow in her ear ****-**** Nariko, the emperor's training master, had had no patience with people who didn't complete a throw or counter a sweeping foot.**

**When no one swatted or bellowed, she looked up through her bangs. Everyone was staring at her.**

**Kel looked down again, wishing she could disappear.**

**"See what happens when you get too comfortable, Hakuin?" drawled the Wildcat. "Someone hands you a surprise. If you'd been a hair slower, she'd've tossed you."**

**"Isn't it bad enough I am humbled, without you adding your copper to the sum, Eda?" the Horse inquired. "Look at me, youngster," he ordered. When Kel obeyed, she saw Hakuin's black eyes were dancing. **

Yuki and Shinko's eyes were also dancing, their faces creased with semi-concealed emotion. They too had studied under Nariko - as all ladies of the Yamani Isles received basic defence training; and they too had experienced Nariko's wrath. They had also experienced the so-called shame of displaying foreign and unusual tendencies in Tortall. They couldn't help but be entertained by Kel's predicament, for Hakuin was a kind hearted soul.

**"Someone has studied in the Yamani Islands."**

**"Yes, sir," she whispered.**

**"Your teacher was old Nariko, the emperor's training master, am I right? She always did like that throw. She drilled me in it so many times I wanted to toss her into a tree and leave her there."**

**Kel nodded, hiding a smile.**

**Hakuin looked at the older pages. "I believe you were practicing the first drill for the Wildcat?" he asked mildly. Instantly there was a flurry of activity, patterns of kicks, throws, and punches. Hakuin turned back to Kel. "Come show the other new ones how to fall. While they practice, we can see what else you know."**

**"Just what they taught the court ladies," Kel said. "Mostly counters to being grabbed or struck."**

**"You were with the embassy?" he asked.****  
><strong>**Kel nodded.****  
><strong>**"That explains everything." To the other new pages he said, "Watch how Keladry falls."**

**They all stared at her with a combination of confusion and dislike. It occurred to her that she had done the very thing her brother had warned her against. The other pages thought she was showing off. She couldn't help that now. The damage was done. She would just have to make sure that she didn't repeat her mistake.**

"Don't worry Kel," interjected Merric, "we soon forgave you for your oddities!"

Her year mates nodded in agreement fondly.

**With a sigh, she toppled forward, as she had so often in the islands, and smacked the ground.**

Hey guys, thanks for staying updated on my story! I thought I'd stop here, these chapters get mighty long. Check back in a few days for the rest of this chapter, some fun with Wyldon, and the re-appearance of the gods!

Please send me any feedback you may have, reviews are so appreciated, Emily.


	9. More The Practice Courts

**The Practice Courts Continued**

Alanna continued reading;

**When the next bell of the morning rang, they moved to another practice yard. A short black man in the maroon and beige uniform of the palace guard waited for them beside a barrel filled with long wooden staffs.**

Finally, everyone would get to see Kel practice with a staff!

**Each of the pages selected one as he passed by.**

**"I am Sergeant Obafem Ezeko," announced the uniformed black man in unaccented Common. "Formerly weapons instructor to the Imperial Guard of Carthak, now serving the crown of Tortall. Lord Wyldon and I will instruct you in the use of various weapons. Pair up. You new ones at this end of the line. Cleon of Kennan and Vinson of Genlith, come up here to demonstrate."**

**Cleon was the big, redheaded boy**

"Petal, why is it all you refer to me as is 'big redheaded boy', surely you could think of a more endearing description!"

Kel laughed at Cleon "To be honest Cleon I didn't really like you as a page, you were always making me fetch things for you! And calling me silly nicknames like petal."

Kel's year mates laughed at poor Cleon.

**who was Esmond of Nicoline's sponsor. He went to stand beside the sergeant, spinning his staff idly in his hands. Vinson faced off with him. He was a bony, tall youth. Kel had seen him eating with the handsome Joren**

"How dare you Kel! Joren, handsome?!" shouted Neal, with all the flair of a player.

Alanna just continued to read, raising her voice a little to drown out Neal's protestations.

**at supper and breakfast.**

**"Show them a high block," instructed the sergeant. "Vinson defending, Cleon striking.****"**

Neal whooped, "You go Cleon, you go!"

**Cleon pulled his staff back and swung it first up, then down. The blow he'd aimed would have struck Vinson on the head or collarbone if it had landed. Instead Vinson gripped his staff, his hands spread wide apart, and raised the weapon a few inches over his head. Cleon's staff met his with a loud clack.**

Alanna was speed reading through all of this, trying to get to the bit where Kel beat up all the boys!

**"Observe the strike," the sergeant told them. "Again, Cleon." The big youth repeated the strike, moving slowly. Kel nodded, watching the way his hands shifted on the smooth wood as he lowered it to tap Vinson's skull. From the way Vinson scowled at the bigger youth, Cleon's tap was a little harder than necessary.**

"Yes Cleon!" cheered Merric and Owen.

**"Your turn," barked Ezeko. He watched as the assembled pages did the strike. The newest boys were clumsy, although they should have had staff practice from their family men-at-arms. Kel was comfortable with the move.**

Of course she was, thought Wyldon drily.

**The only difference between this and the strike of a Yamani glaive, the weapon she knew best, was that she had no razor-sharp eighteen inches of steel at the end of her staff.**

**"Repeat the high block, Vinson," ordered the sergeant. Everyone watched as Vinson moved his hands apart on the staff and thrust it hard into the air, stopping just three inches over his head. He angled the staff down on the right to shield his face as well as his head. The sergeant made everyone do the same movement. He then had Cleon and Vinson demonstrate the middle strike and block, which centered on the chest and belly, and the low combination, to attack and defend the legs. Each time he made the pages try the moves.**

**Once they had practiced each movement, Ezeko had them stand in two lines. The newest pages were paired together. Neal, who was still new despite having been there during the spring and early summer, was partnered with Seaver of Tasride, the dark-haired, dark-eyed boy who looked as if he had a Bazhir ancestor. Kel was paired with redheaded Merric of Hollyrose. He was short, compact, and intent on their exercise. Kel licked her lips and settled the weapon in her hands.**

**"Left line strikes; right line blocks," the sergeant told them. He walked along the double line of pages, checking everyone's hold on the staffs. After he'd changed some boys' grips and nodded approval for others, he stepped back. "To my count," he bellowed. "High! Middle! Low!" Staffs clacked as the exercise began and wood met wood. "High! Middle! Low!"**

**Kel struck carefully. Proving herself tough on a smaller opponent wasn't right, and Merric looked nervous.**

"Jeeze Kel, thanks for the vote of confidence," muttered the aforementioned disgruntled and embarrassed red-head.

**The lightness of the staff bothered her. A Yamani glaive was far heavier. She knew that if she****forgot she held a lighter pole, she would hit too hard.**

**"Faster! Swing 'em!" cried the sergeant. "I want to hear wood clack! You don't master the staff, you'll never master the sword. High! Middle! Low!" Over and over he chanted, increasing the speed. Kel bit her lip, locking her attention on the weapon.**

**"Ow!" someone cried as wood struck flesh.**

Every warrior in the room flinched, familiar with the sharp flash of pain from a staff hitting fingers.

**A few moments later there was another yelp.**

**"Keep going!" yelled Ezeko. "If your fingers hadn't been in the way, they wouldn't have gotten hit. Move 'em apart! The rest of you don't need me to count, do you? High, middle, low! I want to hear those staffs beat as one, understand me?"**

**They had been at it long enough to begin to sweat when Lord Wyldon came into the yard. He and Ezeko walked up and down the two lines of pages. Wyldon changed Prince Roald's footing. Ezeko corrected Esmond of Nicoline's grip. Wyldon thrust Neal's high block higher. They reviewed and changed each boy's work until they got to Kel and Merric. Rather than speak to them or change the way they exchanged blocks and strikes, both men turned and went back up the line, inspecting and correcting the other boys a second time.**

"That was hardly fair sir, punishing both Kel and me by refraining from giving us feedback!"

Wyldon replied in an ashamed tone, "To be honest Merric, you and Keladry were doing quite well on your own. But I guess I wasn't quite ready to interact with the young female, probationary page."

**Kel watched them go; Merric banged her fingers as a result. When she looked at him, he glared at her.**

Merric was glaring at Kel now, blaming her for the fact that he was being humiliated.

Kel look at Merric incredulously, "It wasn't my fault they ignored us!"

**It wasn't **_**my **_**fault they ignored us, she wanted to protest. She didn't. Warriors didn't make excuses. "Switch places!" cried Ezeko when he reached the far end of the line of pages. They all stopped and****repositioned themselves. Ezeko began the chant again. "High! Middle! Low!"**

**Merric seemed glad to be the one to hit. His blows fell harder and faster than the count, forcing Kel to respond in kind. Their rhythm fell out of time with their classmates'. Kel knew the men saw it, but they continued to focus their attention on the other pages. She kept up with Merric, blocking his strikes easily. She'd already attracted enough attention for one morning.**

**"Enough," said Lord Wyldon at last.**

**"Next," the sergeant informed them, "you will use strikes and blocks in combination. This time, strike your partner, then block his return strike."**

**"Change partners," added Wyldon. "Older pages, pair with the new ones, and see if you can better their speed. Come on, switch pairs!****"**

Ooh, this was sure to be interesting, thought Alanna.

**The boys looked around, trying to get to the partners they wanted before someone else did. Unsure of what to do, Kel remained where she was. When everyone formed into two lines once again, she was facing the beautiful Joren.**

"Would you stop complimenting Joren and ignoring my ridiculous good looks and charms!" protested Neal.

**Seeing that Kel stared at him, Joren smiled.**

"Ah Kel, not good, not good. Joren is not going to be an easy fight!" came a worried protest from, presumably, one of her year mates.

**Kel hid her confusion. The day before, Neal had told her that Joren thought girls did not belong there. Now Joren smiled at her as if she were his friend. Does he want to make amends? she wondered.**

"Hmph, fat chance, Kel," Alanna paused her reading to comment. "When I revealed myself to be a woman once I got my Knighthood, I was constantly challenged to spar by Conservatives, who would approach me benevolently enough, then attack me viciously. At least I was able to hold my ground; and it was good practice for my time as King's Champion!"

Alanna had faced her fair share of conservatives challenging Jon's rule as King's Champion - and never once had she failed to honour her King.

**"Get to it," Ezeko ordered. "Right line starts with a high strike. Left line does a high block, then a high strike. Right line, high block, then high strike. Older lads, go slow with the new ones. Strike! Block! Strike! Block! Nealan, stop flinching - if you get hit, you get hit. Strike! Block! Strike! Block!" He kept them at that for a few moments. Joren politely tapped his staff on Kel's as she blocked him; Kel then returned the hit and was blocked by Joren. They continued the rhythm easily.**

"Lulling you into a false sense of security, how cruel," muttered her mother.

**"Switch to middle strike, middle block on my mark," Wyldon ordered. "Ready... middle strike! Middle block! Strike-King's Reach, stand still! You don't get dancing lessons till later.****"**

Faleron flushed with embarrassment as Neal hummed the tune to a classic dance song, often played at court events.

**Ezeko picked up the count. After a while they switched to putting low strikes against low blocks.**

**Kel relaxed. Joren was a good partner, meeting her with just the right amount of force. They traded blows and blocks easily, which gave Kel time to study him. Joren had to be the prettiest boy she'd ever seen. **

Neal opened his mouth to protest, but Alanna absent-mindedly shot out a flare of purple magic which bound itself around Neal's mouth and lower face.

**For all that he was older, a third-year page, he was only an inch taller, his gorgeous blue eyes**

Neal's hazel eyes glared at Kel.

**nearly level with hers. He'd combed back his long, white-blond hair and secured it in a horsetail for the mornings work. If he were a player, Kel thought, they'd have him doing the young god Balcus Starsworn all the time.**

**Suddenly Joren's staff shifted under hers, sliding out of position for a block. He drove the lower end of****his weapon under her guard, aiming for her ribs. Kel foiled him by stepping out of line.**

**"Back in place, probationer," barked Wyldon.**

Wyldon sighed, he should have expected the older pages, especially Joren's cronies, to play all sorts of hazing tricks on Kel, and as a Knight, he should have been more honourable in stopping Kel being targeted. He had really been blinded by his prejudice.

**The exercise changed again, this time to a high strike against a high block, then a middle strike and middle block, followed by a low strike and low block. The speed picked up as well. More and more pages, not all first-years, began to make mistakes.**

**Ezeko stood by her and Joren, yelling out the count. Kel took up the rhythm of the exercise, but now all of her senses were alert. When the pair next to them lost track of which block followed which strike, the sergeant moved to them. In the next moment Kel struck low and felt Joren's staff glide out from under hers. He swung his staff around and up, slamming it down at her collarbone. She whipped the foot of her staff up and around her arm to deflect him.**

**"This isn't a game, probationer!" snapped Wyldon. "Stick to the drill!****"**

Alanna looked up from the scrolls, her intense purple gaze piercing Wyldon's soul.

**Kel saw a mocking gleam in Joren's eyes. So Neal was right, she thought. He isn't nice at all.**

"Aren't I always right, dear Kel?" he managed to say, presumably having used his own gift to remove Alanna's binding.

"Why of course, Sir Neal, have no fear, for now I have learnt to always pay the utmost attention to all the wisdom that flows from your divine mouth!" Kel responded satirically.

Neal himself looked quite chuffed, not realising Kel had been jesting with him, until Dom pointed out to Neal that Kel never referred to him as Sir Neal, and in fact that no one referred to him as Sir Neal!

**Joren held to the drill, but now each block had more force behind it, making it a block and a blow. Each time he struck he was a little closer to her. Will they yell at him if he drives me back? Kel wondered. Or will they only yell if I move out of line?**

Jon was angry now; it really wasn't fair that Kel would think this - that she would be treated differently as a female, probationary page; but unfortunately that was the harsh reality of her first year as a page.

**"Come on, Queenscove!" cried Zahir, the tall young Bazhir page. "Stop flinching!****"**

Now it was Neal's turn to be embarrassed.

**Kel glanced over: Zahir was driving Neal out of the line of boys, his staff a blur in the air. Neal was blocking Zahir's strikes, but just barely.**

**Wyldon and Ezeko went to Neal and Zahir just as the tip of Joren's staff banged into Kel's cheekbone. He forced her backward, striking hard. She kept her fingers away from his weapon, thinking fast. If Wyldon or the sergeant wasn't going to put a stop to this, she had to.**

"Wyldon, it's quire ridiculous that an 11 year old page should have to take steps to protect herself, when you were so absent in monitoring her training." Criticised Jon.

**She turned to the side, forcing Joren to move out of line to keep up. In turning, she discovered that the other boys had gathered around Zahir and Neal. They formed a kind of wall in front of Joren and Kel. Neither of the teachers would be able to see what Joren was doing until they forced the pages to form lines again.**

Alanna kept reading, but couldn't help think that this was a classic Ralon move! She wished that she had been able to observe Kel and warn her about the tricks of men like Ralon and Joren.

**Joren hit Kel hard and fast, raining blows on her. "Do you like this?" he demanded breathlessly as he pressed her. "Do you think you can keep up? Why don't you go home?****"**

Kel almost felt sorry for Joren. He had treated her horrifically, but it was clear to her that this was due to his upbringing. His father was a notorious, hard-right conservative, and raised his sons to be conservatives and his daughters to be submissive, convent wives.

**"I belong here," Kel said grimly. She gave way before him, pushing his strikes to either side, thrusting their power away from her. "Just like the Lioness.****"**

Alanna read this with pride; although she hadn't intended to be an inspiration for noble girls, Kel had obviously been inspired by her!

**"Your precious Lioness is a mage and a cheat,****"**

Alanna had to raise her voice to read the next sentence, as half the hall rose up in anger!

**sneered Joren, hate making him ugly.**

"I know I shouldn't be hatin' the dead an' all, but what a little prick, aye! How dare he say that about ye Alanna, ye were anythin' but a cheat; reluctant to prove herself usin' yer gift an' all!" Came George's immediate, irate response.

**He tried thrusting his staff past her blocks. When she intercepted him, he'd swing to the side hoping to smash her ribs. Kel saw they had almost reached the barn that served as one wall of the yard. She would have to do something when they got there.**

**The butt of Joren's staff caught the big muscle in her left thigh. Kel winced, thinking that she'd had just about enough. Joren was all right with a staff, but he wasn't one of the emperor's ladies.**

Neal guffawed, imagining Joren's reaction to hearing this!

Yuki, Shinko and Ilane silently agreed with Kel, pride evident in their eyes.

**Her brother had warned her against showing off her Yamani skills, but surely he didn't mean for her to lie down for a bully.**

"I certainly did not!" Anders was quite defensive of his younger sister, even though he knew that she was a better warrior than him.

**"Why don't you just get out while you can still walk?" Joren whispered as Kel ran into the barn. He faked a strike at her knee. When she blocked it, he turned his staff over, driving it at her ribs. This time Kel swung her weapon across her chest, pushing Joren's staff into the clear air at her side.**

Everyone was quite impressed with Kel's skills. They all knew she was incredibly talented now with her glaive, but to read about her defeating a later year page, was quite inspiration.

**Joren recovered, slightly off balance, and swung the butt of his weapon toward her ribs again.**

**Kel pivoted to the side, letting Joren's momentum carry him toward the barn. Holding her staff near the top, she thrust its low end between Joren's calves. He crashed face-first into the building.**

Alanna was reading this last paragraph with pride. She was so happy that Kel was able to hold her own.

**He spun - he was quick, she admitted - and struck at her wildly.**

**I'm done being polite, she thought grimly.**

"Ah, there's the Kel we all know and love!" Dom praised, in a slightly too amorous tone for the public surroundings. He quickly amended his statement; "Erm, us boys in the Own always loved you for you stubborn determination." No one noticed his mistake apart from the sharp ears of Ilane of Mindalen. She had suspected that her daughter had taken a lover, I mean she was a young woman of her early 20s, but she wasn't quite sure that she approved of notorious ladies' man, Domitan of Masbolle.

**This time she thrust her staff under Joren's and up, between his hands. A quick twisting jerk yanked the wood from his grip and sent it flying. Kel then drove her staff toward the flesh at the base of his neck.**

**There she let it rest. As Joren slid away from her along the barn, she followed, keeping the light pressure on his windpipe. If she'd had a glaive rather than a staff, she might have given him a scratch to make sure that he remembered the lesson.**

Every single person in the room was applauding Kel! On her first day of training she was already proving herself!

**"What on **_**earth **_**are you doing?" she heard Wyldon snap. "That was not staff work as it is practiced here!****"**

Neal criticised Lord Wyldon, "Ugh, here comes the Stump, always ready to save the day…? More like ruin any progress being made."

**Joren looked at him over Kel's shoulder. Kel kept her eyes on Joren, not trusting him.**

**"She trained in the palace of the Yamani emperor." The dry voice belonged to Eda Bell, the Shang Wildcat. "They're taught the use of a long-bladed pike - a glaive - there. How old were you when you started, Keladry?"**

**"Six," Kel replied. She finally lowered her staff and faced Wyldon.**

**The training master was red with anger. "This is Tortall, not the Yamani Islands - you are a noble, not a savage with a pigsticker.**

Yuki and Shinko chose to ignore the slight made about their people, however, Queen Thayet was not a polite, Palace-reared noble-woman.

Being a foreigner herself, she took it upon herself to hurl insults at the ex-training master, resenting Jon for allowing all of this to happen in their home!

**You will follow the assigned drills, understand? No Yamani cartwheels, no sleight of hand.****"**

"Yamani cartwheels," scoffed Shinko.

**"It might be wise to teach Yamani methods," said Hakuin, the Shang Horse. Both he and the Wildcat leaned against the fence. Wyldon's claim that Yamanis were savages hadn't changed Hakuin's cheery look. He added, "You are friends with the Islands now, but that hasn't always been so. Even with a royal marriage arranged, there are always misunderstandings.****"**

"In fact," submitted Thayet, "that is half the reason a Royal marriage was arranged!"

**"I will take your words under advisement," Wyldon said tersely. "If we may now resume practice? With no more displays?"**

**But a pole arm makes it possible for a smaller warrior to take a big one, thought Kel, surprised by his attitude. That's why the imperial ladies are taught it, to save their honor and that of their charges.**

Thayet's mind was racing with possibilities. Her next reform that she desperately wanted to implement was to adapt the Convent to a more progressive style of teaching.

She wanted to introduce self-defence and arts other than sewing such as use of pole arms and horse riding, so that women could feel confident in themselves, and perhaps join up with the Queen's Ladies - a group she desperately wanted to expand.

**"You practice with the probationer, Nealan," ordered Ezeko. "All of you, back in position!"**

**After more time spent on staff work, in pairs and alone, Wyldon and the pages ran down the long slope behind the palace to the archery range. Kel stayed away from him. After her bout with Joren, it had seemed that every time she turned around, Wyldon was ordering her to adjust her grip on her staff, change her stance, get her blocks higher, strike lower. **

Although it was good he was finally paying attention to her, Kel was disgruntled at Wyldon's lack of fairness.

**It wasn't right - he wasn't correcting the boys nearly as much as he did her - but she vowed she wouldn't let him know she thought so. She would prove that she could take whatever he threw at her.**

Wyldon sighed. She had already proven that, and he felt that the reading of the next few scrolls would serve to only further discredit his training.

**At the archery range, she promised herself that she would not let any of the things she had learned in the Islands affect her work here. She might have carried it off if she had been able to go at her own pace. She knew she was in trouble when the archery master told them that since they were expected to already know how to use a longbow, he wanted them to pick up their speed. He was everywhere, urging the pages to be quick, quick!**

**Soon everyone knew that when Kel got flustered, she gripped her bow in the wrong spot, two-thirds of the way down.**

Daine sighed. As a talented archer herself, Kel needed to make sure she didn't get flustered and focused on the task at hand.

**Rushed, she drew the string with her thumb, not her index and middle fingers. She forgot that she used a short bow, and pulled the string back so far that the arrow dropped away. She bit her tongue and said nothing of the differences between Yamani archery and Tortallan. It's not like I was any good with a Yamani bow, she told herself. After Wyldon's comments about foreigners, Kel let him think she made silly errors as she concentrated on correcting her draw and her handling of the arrow.**

**Stone, she told herself as she picked up a dropped arrow, hearing giggles. For a moment she was five again, listening to the Yamani children laugh and tease the clumsy foreign barbarian.**

Shinko spoke up for the first time since the beginning of the reading. She had been largely occupied with the bundle wrapped in her arms. Lianokami of Conté had come onto this earth not 2 moons before. She had pitch black hair, as dark as her grandfather's and mother's and striking blue, almond shaped eyes, that reflected the candle-lit room like lapis-lazuli.

"Oh Kel," she laughed, "it is funny how Yuki and I were among this Yamani children who used to laugh at you, the clumsy, foreign, barbarian, for what I was I, when I arrived in Tortall, but a clumsy, foreign, barbarian!"

"Cricket," Kel responded, "why do you think I tried so hard to make sure you and Roald had a happy betrothal - so that no one would tease you, so that they would accept you, as they did me in the end."

Ilane and Piers were so proud of their daughter - the Knight with exceptional diplomatic skills!

**They accepted me in the end, she told herself. These boys will, too.**

**"Riding!" called Wyldon when the bell sounded the end of the class. "New boys, pick a mount from the spares.**

"Enter evil, savage, flesh-eating, monstrous beast" drawled Neal.

**That horse will be yours to look after and ride for now. Saddle your mount and ride him out. Don't take forever!"**

**The pages set off for the stable at a trot. Halfway there, Kel noticed that the other four new pages were running full out to reach the stable first.**

"Rookie error, Kel!"

**She picked up her pace, knowing they wanted to beat her to the best choices of the spares. The group of older pages running ahead of her spread out and slowed****down, blocking her without appearing to know she wanted to pass. When she got to the pages' stable, the new boys had made their selections. Their sponsors lounged in front of the stalls as if they dared Kel to even look at the others' selections.**

**They had left her two options. One was a chestnut mare with dull, uninterested eyes and a slumped stance. You could be after her a whole week before she'd take a step, thought Kel. The other horse was a small destrier, larger than most of the other mounts but not as big as the warhorses ridden by knights. A gelding, he was a strawberry roan: red-brown stockings, face, mane, and tail, and a white-flecked reddish coat.**

Neal flinched at the description of Peachblossom, looking at his toes. He had in fact suffered a blow to his feet from Peachblossom just yesterday, and they were still aching, despite his best attempts to heal them.

**His attention was fixed on Kel, and there was a calculating look in his eyes. There were large scars on his legs and sides. White-haired spots on his back showed where he'd been saddled improperly in the past.**

Kel and Daine both smiled at this not so flattering description of Peachblossom. Now an elderly horse of 15 or so, Daine had arranged for Peachblossom to have a perfect 'retirement'. He now spent his days leisurely with the ponies of the Queen's Riders, and his evenings 'catching up' with his previous Master.

**The other pages were halfway done saddling their mounts. Neal worked on his horse, a neat brown mare, as he kept an eye on Kel.**

"Always keeping an eye on me, you were Neal, when in fact it was I who should have kept an eye on you."

**Kel advanced to the dull-eyed mare, hand outstretched. She had to thrust it under the mare's nose before the horse would so much as sniff.**

**"She's the one you want," a man said, coming out of the shadows at the back of the stable. His clothes were spiked with hay and splashed with dried slobber, his blond hair looked as if horses grazed on it. Light blue eyes bulged slightly in his reddish face. The dull mare ambled over and nuzzled him. "She's a bit slow, but she's steady. Peachblossom there's ruined for knight's work - maybe ruined for work at all.****"**

Kel smiled, happy that she had proven him wrong.

**He shook his head, eyes sad. "Dunno what I'll do with 'im if he won't take to cart or plow. They're after me to free up his box for when the new mounts come next week.****"**

Daine shook her head at this assessment of the animals. That was something she really ought to get her self more involved with; the selection of horses for pages - she could help match them up properly, with regard to the animal's desire and personality! She could also help avoid the cruelty which had been Peachblossom's destiny.

**Kel could see it in the stableman's face: he did know what he would have to do. Horses cost money to keep. If they didn't pay for their stall and feed by working, unless they were good for stud they were put down.**

Daine was proud of Kel for helping Peachblossom avoid this fate.

**She walked over to the gelding. Reaching into her pocket, she brought out the apple she'd put there and offered it to Peachblossom. The horse spent more time examining her than sniffing the treat, but he took the apple all the same.**

**"He won't bite, miss," said the hostler, coming over. "Not with me about. But I can't make him stay good, not without neglecting others. Sooner or later my effect on him will wear off. And he's got plenty of other tricks."**

**"I'll take - did you say Peachblossom?" she asked. "If he doesn't work out, I'll trade him for one of these new horses you're expecting.****"**

Neal laughed, "Kel as soon as a you take on a stray, you work on it until they are better. You'd never abandon them."

Speaking of strays Kel had adopted she thought of Tobe. He'd been out riding with Loey, and presumably had been frozen in the time vortex that had consumed Tortall. Hopefully the Great Mother Goddess would bring him here in time for the reading of her time at New Hope.

**"He's too big, miss," argued the hostler. "He's not for someone that's just learning how knights ride.****"**

**"Let me try, please," Kel replied. "I won't hurt him."****  
><strong>**"It's not him I'm worried for," insisted the man.****  
><strong>**"Have you made a choice, probationer?" demanded Wyldon. "We do ride today, remember.****"**

Daine couldn't help but think that she should be present when Pages picked their horses to help match them.

**The hostler grasped Peachblossom's head and laid his face on the horse's muzzle. "You'll be good, all right? I want you to, and sitting in here isn't what you're made for. Behave yourself, Peachblossom. You **_**do **_**know how.****"**

"Debatable," grumbled Neal.

**He released the horse and nodded to Kel. "He'll fare all right for a time, at least. If he gets shifty, tell him Stefan said 'be good.'" He ambled into the shadows at the stable's rear.**

**Kel found the gelding's tack and got to work saddling him. About to pull the girth tight, she found that Peachblossom was rounder than he'd first appeared.**

Daine chuckled at the trick.

**It was an old trick. The horse swallowed a bellyfull of air, making the saddle too loose, ensuring that the rider would slide off.**

**He's testing me, Kel thought. She kneed him in the belly. He turned and looked at her. "I'll tell Stefan on you," she whispered.**

**The horse blew out the air he'd sucked in. Kel cinched the girth tight. By the time Wyldon reached their end of the building, she and Peachblossom stood ready. Wyldon gazed at Kel and at the horse. If he thought the mount was too big and too hostile for Kel, he kept it to himself. Instead he ordered her to****clean the tack well before she used it again. That done, he told the pages to lead their mounts outside and down the hill.**

**The practice yard was far enough from the stable that horses would not be forever trying to run for home. Kel was grateful for that. She was big for her age, but Peachblossom was big, too. If he raced for his stall she would flutter along behind him like a kite at the end of the rein.**

The circle laughed at this image.

**Wyldon and the riding master stood beside the open gate to the yard and observed as each page walked his mount through. Once everyone was inside, the riding master ordered them to form a line, with the horses' heads facing inward. After inspecting the horses, the riding master said quietly, "Mount up.****"**

"I wonder if anyone has ever mounted down," Neal expressed sarcastically.

**Has anyone ever mounted **_**down**_**? Kel wondered as she swung into the saddle. The moment she settled, she thought that perhaps she'd been rash. Peachblossom's back was much wider than her pony's.**

**"Time was," Neal had explained the day before, "pages rode ponies till they were twelve or so. Our Stump, though, says that knights ride true horses, and so will pages. My father told me the number of broken bones from horse accidents has quadrupled since Wyldon became training master.****"**

Baird, ever the cynic, wasn't so sure this was just due to Wyldon's rash decision to make boys of 10 ride warhorses, but also due to his previous style of training, which had, let's be honest, created a set of cruel and egotistical squires, set never to succeed in the Chamber of the Ordeal.

**I should've taken the stupid one, thought Kel. This fellow is too much for me. Peachblossom sighed, as if he'd heard. Kel gritted her teeth. No. I'll keep him. He won't be pulling carts or killed for dogmeat, not while I have breath in my body.**

Daine so appreciated Kel's resilience. It had saved Peachblossom - and most likely had saved Kel numerous occasions. Peachblossom had been such a protective warhorse for her.

**Knights ride horses, so pages ride horses, she told herself, and sat tall. Peachblossom looked back at her as if to say, Don't get cocky.**

**"Walk 'em sunwise," ordered the riding master. "A foot between you and the next rider."**

**Kel tugged the reins. Peachblossom didn't move. She tugged harder. Gods, his mouth must be as hard as stone, she thought, and yanked. At last the gelding understood, just as Wyldon ordered, "Move him along, probationer!"**

**Peachblossom turned and walked forward as soon as Kel nudged his sides with her feet. He paced along so amiably that Kel risked a look around. Most of the other mounts were restless, fighting rein and bit. Feeling better as she watched their riders struggle, she turned her eyes ahead. Peachblossom was stretching out his neck, trying to bite Neal's brown mare.**

Neal dramatically declared that Peachblossom had been after him from the get-go! Kel couldn't help but agree, however, Peachblossom's antics had become much more cheeky yet loving to Neal in their later years.

**Kel shortened her reins, pulling his head up. "You won't fool me," she whispered. The horse flicked an ear back toward her, listening. "I have nieces and nephews!"**

**"Trot 'em," ordered the riding master.**

**Kel kept a watch on her mount. Peachblossom obviously could not be left to his own devices for so much as a breath. The remainder of the lesson was a series of contests between her and the tricky gelding.**

**When Kel waddled out of the stable, her legs feeling as if she still had a mountain between them, Wyldon stopped her. "The boys use the men's baths," he said without meeting her eyes. "We made arrangements for your bathing, for all that I feel it is a mistake to make even a single exception for you.****"**

"And you will keep your opinions to yourself, Lord Wyldon," rebutted King Jon.

**So is this fair? Kel wondered. He's treating me differently from them. But I feel better about washing up by myself... It was too much to think about.**

"What did you expect, Keladry? That I'd force you to bathe naked with 30 teenage boys!" exclaimed Neal.

**She rubbed her head wearily. He seemed to want an answer of some kind. "I understand, my lord," she told him.**

**He lifted his eyebrows, as if he doubted she understood. "You will find a bath ready in your chambers," he said. "I expect you to be on time for lunch."**

**Kel bowed. "If I may go then, my lord?"**

**He nodded. She looked at the long, sloping rise to the palace. "You would do better to run that," remarked Wyldon. "You need the exercise. But I do not require it of the lads, and I will not ask it of you."**

**You won't ask it, but I'll do it anyway, she thought stubbornly. You'll see. I'm as good as any boy. I'm better.**

**Slowly, her legs protesting every step of the way, she began to trot up the hill.**

Everyone smiled at this classic example of Kel's determination in the face of Wyldon's prejudice. Kel meanwhile was grateful of Wyldon's insistence to challenge her for it had allowed her to flourish as a page!

Jon decided to take the scroll from his Champion's grip, reluctant to let her read another chapter, and eager to have a quick sneak peak into what the next chapter would be about.

The room quieted as the King's authoritative voice announced, "**Chapter 4, Classrooms**."

_Hey guys, I hope you are enjoying this! I think First Test is going to be a bit tedious, as it__'__s pretty obviously Wyldon being criticised, Kel being praised, Alanna being angry, Neal being cheeky. I can__'__t wait to get further into the series to delve into some more complex issues, and I hope you will hang around to read that!__  
><em>_Thanks so much for your reviews, and for following my fic, it means so much__  
><em>_Emily._


	10. Classrooms

And I'm back! Let me know which characters you guys would like to see read a chapter next! :)

"**Chapter 4, Classrooms" **read Jon.

**Academic classes began after lunch, just as Kel began to feel her bruises.**

In a genuinely inquisitive tone, Kel directed a question at Jon, "Your Majesty, why is it that classes are scheduled after practice. Surely it would be more reasonable to have classes in the morning then practices in the afternoon? To avoid bruises for one!"

Jon looked up from the scrolls to answer Kel, "That's just the way it's been done for hundreds of years, Lady Knight, and I guess the allure of trying for Knighthood remains to be the traditions, so try and avoid change."

Realising what he had just said, he quickly amended his explanation, "except where society has progressed to a point where change is obviously required, such as the presence of you trying for your Knighthood."

Kel, not entirely satisfied, understood that whilst a progressive at heart, the King couldn't make every change he wanted; and that why he had in fact put her on a probationary year.

**Her first two classes - reading and writing, then mathematics - were taught by shaven-headed Mithran priests in bright orange robes. Not long after the pages' arrival, the teachers put them to work on their first written lessons of the year.**

**"History and the law of the realm,****"**

There was movement in the circle, and an elderly figure straightened up.

**Neal murmured as they walked into their third class. "You'll like this!" He slapped a desk next to his. "Sit here. Sir Myles doesn't care where we put ourselves."**

**"Sir Myles?" she asked.**

**"Sir Myles, Baron of Olau, our teacher in history and law,****"**

Sir Myles, who had been dozing off throughout the readings, was now alert. Although still sharp in mind, age had definitely taken its toll on his body.

Alanna glanced at her father-in-law: his once mousy hair had whitened with age, his skin had darkened from decades of hard drinking as the court drunk, his stature had shrunk, but his large green-brown eyes remained focused and astute.

**Neal explained. "Why do you ask?"**

**Kel ran her finger over a scratch on her desktop. "He's the Lioness's father,****"**

Myles, appreciating that people often only saw him as an extension of the King's Champion wittily remarked, "Why Keladry, you flatter me…"

Kel had the decency to look slightly ashamed, but Alanna stepped in; "Ignore my dear father, Lady Knight, he is simply jesting with you.'

**she told him shyly. Seeing him would be almost as good as meeting Lady Alanna herself.**

Kel looked further embarrassed at how extremely she was fan-girling over Alanna, whilst sitting in a room with said idol.

**"Adoptive father, actually," Neal said as a small, chubby man entered the room. He was long-haired and bearded, dressed in a dark blue tunic over a dark gray linen shirt and gray hose.**

**His green-brown eyes were sharp as he looked over the pages.**

**"Here we are, trembling on the brink of a new year." Sir Myles ambled up to the front of the room and leaned against the wall. "I'm pleased to see no one swung his scythe too hard and cut off his own head-"**

**"But not for lack of trying!" joked the redheaded Cleon.**

**The knight raised gracefully curved brows. "You did not have to say that," he said mildly. "You would not be worthy to be a page if you were not always trying something." He perched on a tall stool. "Well," he said companionably, "we've had quite a year. Will someone explain why calling the recent deluge of battles the Immortals War is misleading?**

Having been so central to the Immortals War, Numair and Daine were eager to hear such a well-respected scholar's perspective of the War, and perhaps, over dinner, discuss with him the war.

**Your highness?"**

**Prince Roald ducked his head, but replied in a clear voice, "Because immortals-Stormwings, spidrens, ogres - were in the fight, but they were just allies to Scanrans, Copper Islanders, and Carthaki renegades. They weren't the leaders."**

**Sir Myles did not seem to care whether his students stood to answer. "Very good." The man looked around. "How many of your home fiefs took damage in the fighting?"**

**Hands went up, Kel's among them. No part of the realm was unscathed.**

**"How many know someone who was killed?"**

**Hands went up again.**

Everyone in the room knew people who were killed during the Immortals War.

For Buri and Thayet, it was a member of the Queen's Riders, for Raoul and Dom, a member of the Own, for Neal it was his brothers. This list went on. The Immortals War had been a devastating war on Tortall, and every corner of the realm had felt the damage and repercussions of a war between humans and immortals alike.

**Kel knew of two people in the village who had been cut to pieces by killer centaurs. Luckily her own family had been spared the loss of any members.**

**"These losses are felt,****"**

And they were, even 10 years after the conflict. Everyone was respectfully silent.

**Sir Myles told them. "Their majesties honor their sacrifice, and we all wish that it had not been needed." As the hands went down he said briskly, "Why did this happen? How did Scanra, the Copper Isles, and the Carthaki rebels come to assault our shores? Joren?"**

**The handsome boy lounged at his desk, seemingly bored. "The King's Champion killed a Copper Island princess thirteen years ago.****"**

"Well that's outrageous," Alanna's face was red with anger, and everyone felt a sudden heat spark from Alanna. Numair, Jon and Baird, those empowered with the most powerful gifts, could see tendrils of purple flame lick at Alanna's fists.

George, using his Sight, could also see Alanna's rage, and took a hold of her fist, flattening her hand, to calm her down.

**"That is one reason: bad blood. It doesn't explain the Carthakis and the Scanrans."**

**Joren shrugged. "Scanrans always raid us. They don't need a reason."**

**"But they do have reasons," Sir Myles pointed out. "Pressing ones that send them against us year after year.**

And, Myles thought, that should have been a huge reminder to us to take our Northern neighbours seriously, instead of dismissing all their attacks as 'raids'. They should have noticed the amalgamation of clans, the rise of a new leader, the enhanced supplies, the increased attacks. All of these were indicators to the chaos that would come from the conflict with Scanra, not 3 years ago.

**Put the Carthakis aside for now. Consider our gentle neighbors to the north. What riches do they have?"**

**"Furs?" suggested Faleron.****  
><strong>**"Rocks," added Cleon, who got the laugh he'd intended.**

**The discussion went on. It ranged from poor Scanrans with failed crops to the destruction of the old Carthaki emperor and the installation of the new one, Kaddar.**

Daine smiled fondly at the mention to her Carthaki friend, whilst Numair scowled thinking not only of Kaddar's affection to Daine, but also of his tumultuous Carthaki history.

**When the bell rang, it surprised Kel - she had lost all track of time.**

**"So what do you think of the king's spymaster?" Neal murmured in her ear as they left the classroom.**

**Kel came to a dead stop. ****"****What?"**

"Really, Sir Nealan, must you go an reveal all my secrets." teased said spymaster.

**Neal smirked. "You didn't know. Myles of Olau isn't just a teacher and a member of the King's Council. He's King Jonathan's spymaster.****"**

Baird took the opportunity to compliment Myles: "And the best spymaster the realm's had!" Myles acknowledged Baird, but also winked at George.

**"You're making that up," she accused him.**

**"Why?" he asked. "My father says he's the best spymaster the realm's had.**

"Opinions as strong as mine rarely change," affirmed Baird.

**It comes from Sir Myles going into trade to mend the Olau finances. His merchants send him all kinds of information - he just expands on it.****"**

Jonathon also took a moment to compliment his long trusted adviser: "You trade business has saved Tortall on more than one occasion, Myles."

Alanna continued "Yes, father, without your interference, I never would have found the Dominion jewel."

Raoul contined "And I never would have found Alanna at the Roof of the World."

Jon finished "And I never would've been crowned."

**"Maybe you shouldn't tell," Kel pointed out. "Maybe it's supposed to be a secret."**

**Neal shrugged. "It's not talked of openly, but it's no secret. What's secret is who's his second in command, the one who does the legwork." **

Luckily for Neal, practically everyone in the room was in the know.

Neal made eye contact with Myles' "second in command"; or rather the King's Secret Spymaster and winked.

During his Squirehood with Alanna, Neal had spent a lot of time either at the Swoop, travelling with Alanna and her husband, or at court with the Coopers, so he was quite familiar with the intimacies of Tortall's spy network - even participating in a mission or two with George's younger daughter Aly!

**He steered her into yet another classroom.**

**Kel came to a full stop again. All thought of spies and secrets evaporated from her mind. One entire wall of this classroom was filled with windows. Two walls were lined with shelves of glass containers, which enclosed plants, water, food dishes, even animals or fish.**

Daine, whose attention had been caught by the mention of animals, realised who Kel's next lesson would be with, and she was very excited to hear all about it.

**Kel was glad to see that the other first-year pages seemed as amazed as she.**

**"Go ahead, look closer," Neal said. "Master Lindhall likes us to take an interest in the animals."**

**A small turtle was trying to bite Kel's index finger through glass when something white and clicky landed on her outstretched arm. It was a kind of living skeleton, a creature of bone and air. It had **_**flown **_**to perch on her, yet its wings were empty, slender fans made of very long finger bones. It gripped her arm with fossil claws. It tilted its long, pointed skull back and forth as if it were looking her over.**

"Bone-dancer!" Exclaimed Daine. It was then that she realised she hand't visited Master Lindhall in a long while, and decided she would take Kitten to go see him once all of this reading nonsense was over with.

**Leaning over, the thing clattered its jaws at her. Then it bit her nose so gently she felt only the barest pressure of its teeth.**

**"Bone!" A man strode over, brushing silvery blond hair from his eyes. "You must excuse Bonedancer," he told Kel in a soft and breathy voice. "There was no such thing as manners when he was alive, so he thinks he need not learn them now."**

**Bonedancer looked at him and clattered his jaws.**

**Kel looked at the skeleton, then at the man. He was nearly a foot taller than she, tanned and weathered, with broad cheeks and pale blue eyes. "I don't understand.****"**

"Few do, Kel!"

**The man smiled. "A mage was briefly granted the power to raise the dead last year. Bonedancer was one of the things she brought back to life. He was a fossil then, and a fossil he remains. He's just rather more lively than most fossils."**

**It sounded like an explanation, but Kel was not sure she understood. I'll ask Neal, she told herself.**

"Oh Lady Knight, I am so flattered that you consider me the font of all wisdom!" proclaimed Neal dramatically.

Kel was turning to jar Neal with her elbows, but found herself beaten by Yuki who slapped Neal across the thighs with her shuhuksen again.

**"Thank you, sir," she told the man politely.**

**"I'm Lindhall Reed," he said to her and to the other first years. "I am one of your teachers in the study of plants and animals. Have a seat, you new ones. As for everyone else, who has brought me a plant from home?" he asked. The older pages and Neal reached into their belt-purses to draw out leaves and stems wrapped in parchment.**

**Kel took a desk near the irritable turtle and waited for her head to stop spinning. She was positive that none of her brothers had mentioned flying skeletons when they talked about their studies.**

Ander's explained that Lindhall had only arrived after he and Conal had tried for their Knighthood.

Daine furthered this explanation by describing how Lindhall had come back from Carthak with her and Numair before the Immortals War.

**After Master Reed's class, those who possessed a magical Gift went to study magecraft. Kel and the magic-less pages had a class with Tkaa the basilisk.**

Neal looked cheery at this. He had always wondered what went on in Tkaa's classes.

**"For those who are new to the palace," the tall immortal began, "you should know that the king has decreed that those pages and squires without magic must learn to cope with magical things. You will have several teachers in this area. I will instruct you in the ways of immortals, of which I am one."**

**He bent down, until his large eyes gazed almost directly into Esmond of Nicoline's. "And immortals are...?" he inquired.**

**"Monsters?" replied the boy. He gasped, panicked.**

Everyone burst out laughing at the boys carelessness.

**"I mean-I beg pardon! Not monsters, of course not." He fell silent as the basilisk laid a paw gently on his shoulder.**

**"Beings from the divine realms, who may live forever unless they are killed in some way," Seaver said quietly.**

**"Very good," replied Tkaa.**

**"Some **_**are **_**monsters, sir," added Seaver, meeting Tkaa's gaze steadily. "My father was killed by a spidren." Kel thought of the one that she had faced at Mindelan and swallowed hard.**

**"My sympathies," replied the basilisk with a bow. "Spidrens **_**are **_**monstrous. Let me tell you of their creation, and of their habits."**

**The pages listened with fierce attention. Spidrens laired throughout the realm and were a deadly threat.**

This information probably would have been useful to Kel about a month before this! Before she had been attacked by said deadly threat.

**Their final class of the day was etiquette, taught by Upton Oakbridge, the royal master of ceremonies.**

Kel and year mates ground simultaneously, joined unexpectedly by the older Knights. Sometimes it was funny to think that the King, his champion, his advisors among others had been through the same experiences as them.

**The room was hot and the work so boring that Kel had to fight to stay awake. She ached all over from the morning's activity. The new pages were taught bows to nobles of different rank, which only made her muscles ache more. The older boys hid yawns as they practiced writing formal letters.**

**As the class drew to a close, everyone was given a book and assigned to report on its first chapter for the next day. When Kel saw the title, she grinned.**

**Oakbridge was on her like a cat. "What amuses you, probationary page?****"**

Kel chuckled at the memory.

**Can't he pretend I'm just like everyone else? thought Kel as she got to her feet. "Nothing, sir."**

**"But you are amused, it was quite clear. You must share the joke with us, probationary page, now, if you please." He stood before her desk, one fist planted solidly on a hip. She could hear his foot tapping briskly.**

**"Master Oakbridge-"**

**"Lord Wyldon shall school you properly in the matter of excuses. I will accept no more evasion, probationary page!"**

**Kel opened the book and pointed to the author's name. "Sir, the writer is my father.****"**

Piers' Yamani mask was broke by a smile. His book, written about the intricacies of the Yamani court, was very familiar to Kel, who having spent her childhood living at the Yamani Palace, understood Yamani etiquette.

**The master of ceremonies snatched the book away and scowled at the title page. "What of that?" he demanded. "The child does not have all of his father's knowledge.****"**

"Her father's knowledge," Kel corrected.

Neal joined Kel, simultaneously saying, "Kel doesn't have all of her father's knowedlge, not his."

**All of **_**her **_**father's knowledge, thought Kel irritably.****  
><strong>**"Excuse me, Master Oakbridge," Neal said in his friendliest voice, "but Kel doesn't have all of **_**her**___**father's knowledge. Not **_**his.**__**"**_

"Why aren't you just two peas in a pod," teased Dom.

**Dropping her blank Yamani mask-face, Kel glared at him.**

Neal looked up and noticed Kel was currently glaring at him.

**Oakbridge also glared at Neal. **

He looked around, and noticed everyone was glaring at him.

"**The majority of you are lads. Proper usage calls for male pronouns when males are part of the group.****"**

"Except, that he addressed Kel alone, which then demands the exact term," reminded Neal.

**"Except that you addressed Kel alone, which then demands the exact term.****"**

"Stop repeating yourself, Meathead!" teased Dom.

**Kel clenched her hands behind her, where Master Oakbridge could not see them. She promised herself that from now on she would try to sit as close to Neal as possible. She could not kick someone eight chairs away.**

Everyone laughed at this, especially as Kel did exactly that and kicked Neal.

**Oakbridge gave Neal a look that would have stripped paint, then turned back to Kel. "You have not answered me," he said. "Have you your father's knowledge? You are but a child."**

**"Yamani etiquette is serious," Kel replied, her face once more Yamani-calm. "Especially at the emperor's court. People have their heads cut off if they don't bow right.****"**

People looked in shock at Kel, Yuki and Shinko, but Jon just continued reading.

**Oakbridge stared at her for a moment. Then he pursed his lips. "Review this entire volume tonight,****probationary page Keladry," he announced. "Tomorrow you will report on those parts that are familiar to you, and which parts, if any, are not. Should I be satisfied as to the breadth and depth of your knowledge, I may call on you to assist me in preparing for courtesies to the Yamanis." To the pages he explained, "As I am certain his highness is well aware" - he looked at Prince Roald, who nodded - "their majesties have arranged for a state visit next fall by Princess Chisakami of the Yamani Empire.**

Roald looked sad at this reminder of his betrothed's death. Although he had never met Chisakami, he had spent the better part of a year planning his marriage with her, and corresponding with her by letters.

His parents were reluctant to arrange a marriage for him, as they truly believed in marrying for love. But the marriage had been necessary, in Tortall's tumultuous political climate.

They had therefore instructed him to familiarise himself with Chisakami, so that when she arrived, he would feel like he already knew her, and their betrothal would not be so awkward.

**When she arrives, we shall know how to greet her and her attendants properly, according to their own custom. To that end-"**

**The final bell of the afternoon rang. Kel gathered all her papers and books and followed the other pages out of the room.**

**Neal was waiting. "So, probationary page... " He grinned as Kel made a face. "How long did you live with the Yamanis?" They headed back to their rooms.**

**"Six years," she replied. "Longer than I've lived in Tortall, actually."**

**"Can you speak-" Neal began as they stopped before Kel's door. He interrupted himself to sniff the air. "What's that smell?"**

**Kel leaned closer to her door and sniffed. "Urine," she said. There was a pool of yellowish liquid on the threshold. "I'd better clean it up.****"**

Wyldon looked ashamed, and rightly so thought Alanna.

**"No," ordered Neal. "You have to change for supper. I'll tell Salma and meet you in the mess hall. Get moving." He trotted away, shaking his head.**

Ilane and Piers were glad Kel had Neal to look after her. When she had written so passionately about her sponsor, Ilane and Piers had presumed that something romantic was blossoming between the two pages, and were actually disappointed when nothing had eventuated.

**Kel juggled her school materials until she could pull out her key, then opened the door. At least none of the urine had leaked into the room; that was a blessing.**

**She closed the door with a sigh. What a disappointing day! Parts of the morning's exercise had been interesting, but the classwork was simply tedious. What good would etiquette do a knight? And how could she be expected to stay awake all afternoon when she'd been running all morning? Couldn't she just do the physical training and forget learning a whole new set of bows?**

**It is not your place to question what the masters want you to learn, she told herself. Your place is to obey. It was what her Yamani teachers would have said if they had heard Kel's unhappy thoughts.**

**I just wish obedience was more exciting, she told them silently as she began to change her clothes for supper. Is that so much to ask?**

**Once they had filled their trays, Kel and Neal went to the spot they had claimed as their own and sat. Kel picked up her fork, but Neal shook his head. She looked around. All of the boys had taken their places, but no one had begun to eat. She raised her eyebrows at Neal, who whispered, "No Stump."**

**Everyone fidgeted; Kel's stomach growled. At last the door opened. The squires jumped to their feet and bowed. Someone murmured, "The king.****"**

Oh joy, Jon thought, the annual induction dinner. Jon resented this dinner, as he remembered the hundreds of dinners he and his year mates had had to wait for the King to eat, before they could. He didn't wish to inflict that on younger generations and had abolished the dinners for a reason. Wyldon had insisted on keeping one formal dinner a year, for traditions sake.

**Then everyone was up and bowing as two men - the king and Lord Wyldon - walked up to Wyldon's small table. Kel stared at the ruler whose domain she wanted to serve so much. King Jonathan was the handsomest man she had ever seen.**

Kel blushed at having said handsome man read this to about 30 of her friends, family, superiors and peers.

**He was an inch shorter than Wyldon, but the training master faded beside him. King Jonathan's neatly trimmed hair and beard were coal-black, framing a face that was tan from a summer outdoors. His nose was straight and proud. His eyes were a deep, brilliant sapphire blue, framed by long lashes. On any other man those lashes might have seemed feminine; not on the king.**

**He grinned; white teeth flashed against the black of his beard.**

"He is handsome, isn't he, Keladry?" teased Queen Thayet.

Kel sunk further into her seat, whilst everyone laughed at her obvious embarrassment.

**"Don't let me keep you from your meal," he said in a clear baritone voice. "I remember what it was like from my own days at those tables."**

**"If your majesty will give the blessing?" asked Wyldon, half bowing.**

**The king nodded. He stepped up to the lectern, raising his hands. "Bright Mithros, Great Mother, all gods powerful and small, grant us your blessings and guidance, we humbly pray." He brought his hands together, and his audience realized he'd finished.**

Everyone who knew Jon personally weren't surprised at his informality.

Those who had been around his Jon's father's reign had been impressed by Jon's ability to centralise his bureaucracy, creating an efficient and loyal set of advisers who aided the realm without the unnecessary cluttering of officials.

**"So mote it be," responded the pages and squires raggedly. They had expected a longer prayer.****  
><strong>**"Now eat," said the king. "After you're done, I'd like a word." He and the training master sat at Lord****Wyldon's table. The fourth-year page whose task it was to wait on them rushed to put food before the two men.**

**Kel eased back onto her seat, her thoughts all in a jumble. She tried to sort them out as she ate. She wished she could ask the king why he had allowed Lord Wyldon to put her on probation for a year. In that original proclamation ten years ago, it was written that girls could try for their knight's shield; probation had not been mentioned. It wasn't fair, so why had he allowed it? Could she serve a king who wasn't just with her?**

Jon's shock at Kel's thoughts pervaded into his reading. His disappointment in himself evident. How could a girl who was only just eleven have such profound thoughts; thoughts which pierced his heart and mind. For a King, to hear that one of his subjects did not find him just and fair, was horrendous. Reading these scrolls was making it clear to him what an injustice he had done to Keladry.

**Chivalry worked two ways: you gave good service to your overlord, and in return your overlord honored your service and treated you honestly. None of this adding extra conditions when all you wanted was the same chance everyone else got.**

**I suppose I'll never find the courage to ask him why flat out, she thought sadly. I'll just bow and be polite like a good ambassador's daughter.**

Jon looked up at his subject; Kel, we most definitely should talk once this is over, his look said.

**I bet Neal wouldn't hesitate to ask. She looked at her sponsor and smiled in spite of herself. Neal was eating his cake as his vegetables got cold on his plate.**

"Ugh, how many times will I need to tell you, Meathead, eat your bloody vegetables," scolded Kel.

"Whatever you say Mother…" was Neal's snarky reply. He loved how caring Kel was, and this past decade of their friendship, how although he hated how she forced him to eat his vegetables, he always knew she had his best interests at heart.

**When everyone had finished, the king went to stand at the lectern again. "Don't get up," he said as everyone began to rise. "If memory serves me, your legs are starting to get sore right about now.****"**

The circle chuckled.

**A number of the boys chuckled. Kel looked at her hands, which were curled into fists in her lap. If you can't treat me properly, I'm not going to laugh at your jokes, she thought stubbornly.**

Dom smiled at his strong-minded Kel's youthful determination. He wished he had known her as a page, as well as a Squire. From what he had read in Neal's letters during their time as pages together, she was quite the young girl!

**"I won't keep you long," the king promised. "I really just wanted to look at you.**

**"We survived the Immortals War, as they're calling it. We survived, but at a price. You know as well as I how many knights were lost, how many crippled. Thanks to Lord Wyldon, you older pages and squires were also able to fight, to defend our people. You did well - but I can see there are faces gone from this room who were present last fall. We shall miss those who are gone.**

**"Our enemies tried to destroy us. They failed - but we are hurt. Inside these walls, I can tell you, we are hurt. Our healing will be the work of years."**

**No one spoke. No one moved.**

**"Most importantly," he continued, speaking as he might to his closest friends, "it is the work of **_**your **_**years. Your studies, your bruises, your saddle sores, your nights spent doing mathematics, and history, and mapmaking. Your mastery of the arts of war, and of the laws of the realm."**

**King Jonathan paused for a moment, his eyes exploring their faces. Looking at him, Kel thought grudgingly, All right, he hasn't been fair, and he hasn't made Lord Wyldon treat me like the boys, but he's right about the work. I'll show them-I'll show him, and Lord Wyldon - that I'm as good for that work as anybody else. Like the emperor's Chosen warriors. I'll be an example. They'll be sorry they ever treated me unjustly.**

Kel smiled proudly. She had be an example, Gods, she still was an example; she was reluctant to admit it, but the commoners really did see her as the Protector of the Small.

**"Each one of you here is a gem, all the more precious because we lost so many. Combined, you are the treasure of the kingdom. Treat yourselves as such. Work hard, study hard, and know your value. Guard your strength, make it grow. Build your stores of learning. Do it not for yourselves or your teachers or your monarchs. Do it for the kingdom. Do it for us all.****"**

It was fitting that Jon was reading this chapter, as when he read his speech, it was as if everyone in the Chamber was present in the mess hall at the time it was read. They were all transported back to the few years after the Immortals War. Everyone was thinking about something they had experienced then; but everyone was united in admiration for their inspirational King who had, for the past 3 decades led their realm.

**He looked them over one last time, nodded briskly, then strode out of the hall. He was gone before any of them remembered to bow.**

**As unhappy as her thoughts had been, Kel still had to remember to take a breath once the king had left the room. His presence was even stronger than the emperor's had been. She could see how people might fight and die for him, and how he could stir such fierce loyalty in calm and levelheaded men like her own father.**

Every warrior in the room, every person in fact, could attest to this fact. They had all sworn oaths of fealty: oaths to serve their realm and their King to the death.

It was easy to swear this when your King was such a powerful presence in the realm, such a man to look up to.

**Just a look around the room showed her boys who were still caught up and breathless after what he'd said. Even Neal, who seemed so world-weary, looked eager.**

**When he realized her eyes were on him, he smiled. "Isn't this a great time to be alive?" he asked. "Stormwings and spidrens to fight, beings from legends arrayed at our sides, people in need of protection and us being prepared to do it... Nothing happened in King Roald's time, and everything's happening now.**

Now was the Age of Heroes: the years of Thayet the Peerless, the Lioness, the Giant Slayer, the Protector of the Small, the Whisperman… the list went on. These were the heroes of the Human Era.

**We'll be sung about, our names will be passed on to our descendants.****"**

Already, songs were being sung about these heroes.

Dom started a humming a fairly recent but well known tune. As soon as Kel heard the first few notes she jammed her elbows into his ribs - she hated hearing that particular song: a ballad about her epic journey into Scanra.

**"It's going to take a lot of work, that's for certain," she replied with a shrug.**

**Neal propped his chin on one hand and gazed at her. "You aren't a bit romantic, are you?" he asked, amused.**

Dom had to disagree on that point, but unfortunately had to remain silent.

**She sat back and stared at him. She was beginning to think that Neal required a keeper.**

Everyone laughed out loud at Neal's hurt face.

He looked at Kel with sad eyes; "Why do you think so little of me, dear Protector," he lamented dramatically.

**He seemed to have the craziest ideas. "Romance? Isn't that love-stuff?" she asked finally.**

**"It's more than just love. It's color, and - and fire. You don't want things magnificent and filled with - with grandeur," he said, trying to make her understand. "You know, drama. Importance. Transcendent passion.****"**

"Wow, Neal, whoever knew you were such a romantic!" laughed Cleon.

Dom had to get a word in: "Are you kidding? You've obviously never heard in horrendous poetry!" Dom then went on to recite "Oh Yamani blossom, how my heart aches at your absence…"

The circle laughed at these classic Neal antics.

**"I just want to be a knight," Kel retorted, putting her used tableware on her tray. "Eat your vegetables. They're good for you.****"**

Kel gave Neal a look which clearly reminded him that for the next week as they read these scrolls she would be present to force feed vegetables down his throat.

**When she returned to her room, Kel found a small package on her desk. She looked it over. It was wrapped in canvas and addressed to her. The writing was ornate yet readable, like the style that market scribes used. The twine and canvas both were cheap quality, available to anyone with a few coppers to spend.**

Kel and Alanna smiled at each other.

**She drew her belt-knife to cut the twine, sawing until the cord parted. Kel put the blade down with a sigh. She would have to sharpen it yet again. It got dull very quickly. She hadn't thought to ask her parents for a new one before she left home.**

**Opening the canvas wrap, she found a plain wooden box inside. Shaking her head - she didn't like mysteries of any kind**

Neither did Neal it seemed, who was bouncing in his seat, eager to discover who had sent Kel a gift!

**-Kel opened the box. Inside she found a sheathed belt-knife. Like the box, the sheath was plain, made of the same kind of black leather that wrapped the hilt. The blade itself was a very different matter: it was steel as fine as anything that came out of the Yamani Islands, so sharp it would slice a hair.**

Ilane and Piers were curious about the gift too. They knew that Kel had received quite a few of such expensive gifts during her time at the Palace, and they had never found out who sent them.

At first, Kel had thought it had been them, but she soon realised that her parents could not afford to gift her such things, what with grandchildren becoming pages, and daughters to present at Court.

**Kel knew that because the first thing she did was pluck one from her head and draw it lightly over the edge.**

**Underneath the knife was a small leather bag with a whetstone. Like the sheath and box, the bag was ordinary. The stone was high-quality goods. It would put on an edge even her old knife would hold.**

**Inside the bag was a parchment tag. Written on it, in that same common lettering, was "Goddess bless."**

**Kel had to sit on the bed. Who would send such a fine gift?**

This question was being echoed by most in the hall!

**Anyone in her family would include a proper note. Neal was friendly, but she couldn't see him spending this kind of money on her. She couldn't see anyone doing it.**

"You think so little of yourself, Kel!"

Kel just didn't expect such a gift, before she hardly knew anyone at the Palace.

"But really, it is curious, who gave you these gifts?" voiced Ilane.

Everyone looked around - so it really wasn't her parents? Who had been Kel's mysterious benefactor…

**She thought it over until the first after-supper bell rang: she had classwork, and Neal had invited her to study with him. Fretting over the identity of the gift-giver would not be of much use for now. She removed her old knife and clipped the new one to her belt, smoothing it with careful fingers before she gathered her books. The gift had come the first day of real classes, which told her there was one thing she could be sure of: someone wished her well.**

**Kel smiled. Someone wanted the probationary page to succeed.**

Alanna certainly did. Kel had set a perfect precedent to all girls of noble birth to try for their Knighthood. It had been easy to get Timon to arrange for the gifts to be left in Kel's room throughout her time at the Palace.

Kel smiled in remembrance of the gifts which had always perfectly suited her need. Thinking about it, she really should think of some way to pay back Alanna for her generosity.

Jon was glad that Kel had had some support by this mysterious benefactor, and he had an obvious inkling as to who would want the probationary page to succeed, without giving her undue attention.

Jon rolled up the scroll and looked around for a volunteer to read the next chapter.


	11. Kel Backs Away

Daine took the scroll from Jon, and began to read: "**KEL BACKS AWAY****"**

**Five weeks**

Owen whined at having missed so much of the details of Kel's first year. He was so jealous that he hadn't been in Kel's year, so unlike her year mates he didn't know what happened in those five weeks.

**after her arrival at the palace, Kel decided to write a letter to her family.**

"It took you five weeks to write to your family, Kel?!" exclaimed Raoul.

Kel looked sheepishly at her parents "I was very preoccupied…"

**It was hard to get started. That morning Peachblossom had stepped on her foot, bruising it even through her heavy riding boot.**

Neal flinched having also been injured so by Peachblossom, and having seen first hand the damage which he did.

**It seemed to hurt worse as the day wore on, distracting her in her classes and at supper. Only when she had propped the foot on a cushion placed on a stool did the throbbing ease enough to allow her to write.**

"Neal, you should have looked at that for Kel! Lest there be any lasting damage." Baird tutored his son, with Alanna nodding approval.

"But Pa, you know how reluctant Kel was to be healed back then!"

_**Dear Papa and Mama,**_

_**Thank you for the package with the candied fruit and cakes. I shared with my sponsor, Nealan of Queenscove. He liked the cakes very much.**_

"Of course you did, Meathead"

_**I can't believe that five whole weeks have gone. I am working hard. The teachers are strict. Master Oakbridge, the master of ceremonies, is teaching Yamani etiquette from Papa's book. I have to show everyone the submissions so much that I get dizzy. My favorite class is mathematics. I think the teacher, Master Ivor, is pleased with my work.**_

"You always loved maths, Kel," reflected Raoul, who had often had Kel doing complex arithmetic and trigonometry during her squirehood.

_**Tell Tilaine there are no banquets until Midwinter Festival so I haven't served the king at table yet. Pages get to practice serving Lord Wyldon and his guests at supper three days in a row. The new pages are last on the schedule so my turn won't come until late this year. I won't get to serve at the high table at Midwinter. Only senior pages get to wait on important people like the king.**_

_**I have a horse. He is a strawberry roan gelding named Peachblossom. He is too big for me, but I like him. He will be sold or killed if I do not keep him. He is very clever, and plays all kinds of tricks if I do not keep an eye on him.**_

Although Neal was grumbling at this, everyone could tell it was all very lighthearted. The atmosphere was further lightened by the tone in which Daine was reading, clearly passionate about Peachblossom.

_**Also, might I have some green tea from our stores? It is very expensive here, and I truly need something to drink at night as I do my classwork.**_

_**I did not pack enough dresses. We are allowed to wear our own clothes to supper unless there is a feast or something. Might I have some of my other gowns and some more shifts? And could they be let down an inch? I have grown a little.**_

"I was so surprised when I got you letter," laughed Ilane. Kel had always preferred to wear breaches at home, and in the Isles as they were much more convenient for training.

**Kel smiled at the last paragraph, knowing it would surprise her mother. She had always preferred breeches for wear at home, unless they had to don kimonos for an event at the emperor's court. These days, however, Kel wore dresses whenever possible. She was not about to let the pages forget that there was a girl in their midst.**

Cleon chuckled, "How could we ever forget that you were a girl Kel!" This was especially poignant considering their previous relationship.

Kel however looked a little downcast. She often felt as though her fellow pages, squires and even Knights and men of the Own had forgotten that she was a girl. They treated her like one of the boys. This was part of the reason that she never acted on her crush with Neal; surely he just saw her as another mate!

Alanna smiled proudly at Kel; just another example of how they were different. Whilst Alanna wanted to act like a boy, Kel had wanted to remain womanly but do the same things as boys.

**Gowns at supper were just one way to remind them.**

**What else could she tell her family? Kel stared at her letter, drumming her fingers. She decided to leave out that sometimes Prince Roald sat with her and Neal at supper. For one thing, it seemed like bragging. After all, the prince had made it a point to sit at meals with each of the pages at least once during the weeks since her arrival. That he sat with her and Neal the most could simply be due to his curiosity about the Yamanis. Kel suspected that Prince Roald wanted no one to guess that he was fretting about his coming marriage to Princess Chisakami. **

Roald blushed, and his parents looked on sadly. They hadn't wanted to burden their son with such a diplomatic duty at such a young age. They had wished for him to carry out his first years training for Knighthood just like the other boys- and girls.

For Jon especially, who had been crowned only a couple of years after gaining his Knighthood, this was difficult for him to reflect on. He was sad that his son too felt the burden of his role as heir.

**Instead she wrote:**

_**Does Mama still have her sketchbook from the Islands? Her pictures are better than the ones in books in the palace libraries. Neal wants to know what things look like.**_

**That was true enough. Neal **_**was **_**curious about the Yamanis and how they lived, and if the prince also looked at the sketches, so much the better.**

Roald smiled in remembrance - Kel had always had a way to subtly ensure everyone was happy. She was so considerate, and it made him so happy to be her friend that she was considering him, even back then before they became good friends.

**She would not mention the bad things that happened, not the boys' tricks or Peachblossom****'****s bad habits. That seemed too much like whining to her.**

Piers personally was glad Kel hadn't told them these things. Although they knew she was more than capable, receiving news of her hazing and other struggles would have made him worry even more for his youngest daughter.

**Instead she shifted her foot to a better spot on the cushion and wrote on:**

_**There are sparrows who come to me for bread and the seed I get from the stables. They are**__**practically tame,**_

Daine read this with a slightly guilty twinge; it was definitely he fault that the animals near the Palace that she so often frequented were tame. It was due to her exposure with them that they adapted and became more human-like. While this had its advantages, like easier communication between the People and the people, it also removed some of the independence of the animals. This had been one of the reasons she had left Dunlath, she remembered. She hadn't wanted the wolves to become so human that they couldn't survive on their own, and she certainly hoped her prolonged presence in places would change the People for good.

_**and eat at my windowsill. One of them is a female with a pale spot on her head.**_

Crown, Kel smiled fondly.

_**I named her Crown. She scolds the others and she is always the first at the food, so I think of her as their queen.**_

Daine contemplated Kel's insightfulness.

_**The sparrows get up before dawn, and it is nice to hear them chirp while I dress. There is an amazing lizard-bird skeleton that is actually alive in my class on plants and animals. He likes bread too. Lucky for me, Neal said we can ask the cooks for extra food so I am not forever trying to sneak rolls out of the mess hall!**_

**What else could she say? They didn't have to know that only Neal and the prince would talk to her, or that yesterday she had been doused in a bath of muddy water when she stepped out of her room.**

Piers and Ilane sighed. As did Wyldon. He was beginning to form a full image of Kel's first year at the Palace, and it wasn't a nice one.

**Thanks to that she had been **_**very **_**late to breakfast, causing the boys to growl as she came in. For her lateness, Wyldon had given her a week of mucking out the stables from the first bell after supper until the second bell.**

Wyldon was also beginning to realise that he had been a major catalyst in Kel's suffering.

**She would just finish her letter with the cheerful bit about the sparrows.**

**Once she had finished, she turned to get her sealing wax and seal from her desk drawer. Her bruised foot slipped from its pillow to bang on the floor. She yelped.**

**Someone knocked on her door. "Kel, open up. It's me, Neal."**

**"Drat," she muttered, and went to let him in.**

**As he stepped into the room, he saw her lucky cats. "Why are those things waving?****"**

Yuki shook her head at young Neal's naivety. He was so familiar with the customs of the Yamani's now. Immediately after the end of the war, they had been married up north on the border. They had then taken a 'honeymoon' to the Yamani Isles, where Yuki was reunited with her parents and siblings and was able to introduce Neal to her family.

**She smiled. "The legend is that a cat waving to the first emperor drew him out of the path of an enemy arrow. The Yamanis make hundreds of them. They're supposed to bring luck."**

**"Good thing you have so many, then," remarked Neal, picking one up and examining it.**

**Kel made a face at him. "Very funny." She hobbled over and put the cat back where it belonged.**

**"I **_**thought **_**you were limping in the mess,****"**

Kel glared at Neal: he was too observant about her life; especially that relating to any potential healing - not so much her love life!

**he said. "Have a seat and let me take a look."**

**"The door stays open," she warned him.**

Wyldon was glad that she had actually followed his rules, and it seemed most willingly. He would stand by that rule. Although his social views were progressing, he would maintain certain views on women, and it was his opinion that this particular rule was in fact in Kel's favour.

**"Yes, yes, yes. Why are you holed up in here?" he demanded. "Come study with Roald and me.****"**

Roald, Kel and Neal smiled remembering their old studying arrangements, which had expanded with their popularity.

**"I will," she said, wincing as she lowered herself onto her bed. "I just had to finish a letter home. I wanted to thank them for the cakes and things."**

**Neal grabbed her footstool and sat by the bed. Gently he lifted her swollen foot onto his knees. "And you say Peachblossom wasn't trying to hurt you?****"**

Daine paused from reading to scold Neal, "Of course Peachblossom didn't intend to hurt Kel, Neal!"

Neal looked very guilty.

**he said. Her foot was one large bruise.**

**"He wasn't," Kel retorted. "If he'd been **_**trying, **_**he'd have broken it. I really think he's starting to like - ow!****"**

Daine looked appreciatively at Kel, who unlike Neal, loved Peachblossom greatly even when he did harm her!

**"There's no reason why you should have this kind of pain," muttered Neal, inspecting her toes. "It figures. You aren't at all ticklish."**

**"Very funny," she retorted, eying him nervously. "What are you going to do?"**

**"Fix it," he said. "Foot bruises take forever to heal without help."**

**"I don't know," Kel protested, carefully drawing her foot away. "The Yamanis say it's better to live with pain.**

"Well know you sound just like the Stump, Kel!" Neal rolled his eyes.

Wyldon also rolled his eyes: "SHUT UP MEATHEAD!"

Everyone looked shocked at the usually composed Lord Wyldon.

"What," he shrugged innocently, "If Neal will insist on calling me by that nickname, then I shall insist on calling him by his nickname."

**You have to let it roll away like water off a stone. That way it doesn't have any power over you."**

**"They sound like wonderful, cheerful people," commented Neal. "Any other useful warrior stoic arguments?****"**

"Enough of your sarcasm, Neal" scolded Yuki.

**Kel shook her head. "What would Lord Wyldon say if he knew? He told us knights work through pain all the time. He does it himself, you can see it hurts him to use that arm." Wyldon had shed his sling a week after the start of classes, and used his right arm now in weapons practice and riding. "Sometimes there's no healer around, or others need a healer more than you."**

**"Well, you're neither a stone nor a Yamani nor the Stump, in case you haven't noticed,****"**

"Oh no, Meathead, Kel thought she was me, let's go with that.." Everyone laughed at Wyldon's outspokenness, and Neal just looked on, mouth agape at his training master.

**Neal said tartly. "And it's foolish to stint on healing in a palace full of mages. Don't argue anymore." His voice was firm but his hands gentle as he drew her leg back onto his knees.**

**Kel thought of her Yamani teachers, who were taught as children to sit unmoving in icy rains for as****much as an entire day. **

"Now that is barbaric," Neal exclaimed.

**She **_**was **_**being weak, letting Neal do this.**

"You're not being weak, Keladry, Neal is right. It's silly to refuse healing when it's readily available" assured Baird.

**She ought to refuse the help, but she couldn't. Her foot hurt too much.**

**Neal rested her foot on his hands and bowed his head. A soft light of such a deep green as to be nearly black shimmered between his palms and Kel's flesh. She felt it as coolness that sank under her skin, and sighed. The pounding in her foot began to soften until it had ceased. Her toes shrank back to their normal size as she watched.**

**"I can't believe you gave up learning to be a healer," Kel said when Neal released her foot. "I can't believe you're happier as a page. An **_**old **_**page, at that!****"**

Baird sighed, knowing what had made his son want to become a page, despite having such a promising career as a healer.

**Neal made a face. "I can name three who were older when they started."**

**"Please don't," Kel said hurriedly. Once Neal started to give lists of things, even a three-person list, he would not be content until he also mentioned what books he'd learned their names from, who wrote them, and who disagreed with the writers of the original books.**

"You're insufferable Squire Neal!"

**It was far easier not to let him get started. She said, "And don't tell me you did all this to be one of the oldest first-year pages in the realm."**

**Neal sighed,**

Present day Neal sighed too, knowing what was coming.

**surveying his long-fingered hands. "On the Great Roll of Knights in the Hall of Crowns, twelve Queenscove knights are listed - only the Naxens have more.**

Gary sat up proudly.

**In **_**The Scroll of Salute, **_**King Jonathan the First wrote that four houses were the shield of Tortall: Legann, Naxen, ha Minch, and Queenscove. My brothers thought knighthood was the greatest service they could give.****"**

Jon affirmed this "And it was. Your brother's service and the service of all Knights is not easily ignored."

**"But it isn't the only service **_**you **_**can give," protested Kel. "You've got brains. You've got the magical Gift. Why are you bashing about here?"**

**"Keeping you out of trouble,****"**

"Neal, imagine if you hadn't been around to guide me all those years. Imagine how much I would have suffered from Peachblossom's hooves!" Kel remarked laughing, but also seriously. Could she imagine trying for her Knighthood without Neal's support?

**Neal said cheerfully. "Try resting your weight on that." As Kel stood and walked under his gaze, he continued, "As to that ill-tempered nag of yours, I have an idea."**

**She was no scholar, but she knew when a subject was closed. "He's not a nag, and I won't take another horse."**

**"I **_**know **_**that," said Neal, exaggeratedly patient. "But perhaps we can have someone talk to him on your behalf. Come on.****"**

"Yay, I presume this is where I feature," Daine said cheerfully.

**He led her at a brisk walk through the classroom floor to a broad stair, up two stories, and down a hall. "The academics' rooms are on this floor and the one below," he explained. "Some of our teachers - the ones who aren't priests - live here. You won't get these two until later this year in magic class."**

**Neal strode to a door decorated with a bronze nameplate. **_**Numair Salmalin **_**was engraved in the metal. Below it, in letters more recently added, was the name **_**Veralidaine Sarrasri.**_

Daine giggled remembering the scandal she had caused. She had been but 17 when she had moved in with Numair at court and he had been 30. Revealing their relationship to their friends had been shocking enough, but they all knew how much the loved each other. The conservatives meanwhile, were in uproar. Standard, really.

**He rapped hard, then waited, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Why is he nervous, all of a sudden? wondered Kel.**

Kel laughed out loud while Neal groaned.

"I didn't realise how much of an occupational hazard it was being your friend Kel. It never occurred to me that in reading your thoughts everyone in this room is going to hear all of my private conversations with you!"

Everyone else looked eager to see what had brought this reaction out in Neal.

**The door opened a crack and a young woman peered out. Brown curls tumbled around a face lit by blue-gray eyes. Her mouth was soft, her chin roundly stubborn. "Neal, hello," she whispered with a smile. "Did you want Numair? He's sleeping. He was up all last night and half today on a working."**

**"Actually, Daine, I wanted to ask a favor of you," Neal replied, keeping his own voice to a whisper. He was even more nervous than he'd been a moment ago. "It's for my friend Kel, here. And her horse.****"**

Daine skimmed ahead and read the next line in shock, but laughed it off.

**He likes her, Kel realized with amusement. A **_**lot.**_

There was a black flash as Neal was slammed out of his chair into the wall ten metres behind him.

Daine dropped the scroll to grab Numair's hands, and stop him from doing anything more irrational.

Alanna and Baird meanwhile had raced to Neal who lay crumpled on the floor. Yuki stayed seated with Kelly and Kel, but had lines of worry drawn across her forehead.

Neal stood up swaying as Alanna and Baird gave him the once over, purple and green magic blending quite beautifully over Neal's body.

"Have no fear, dear friends, I am alive" he declared dramatically, "and gosh Daine you need to learn to control your man's jealousy!"

Numair, who had come out of his jealous trance, approached Neal apologetically - "I'm so sorry, I don't know what came over me, it was just instinct."

Neal assured Numair that no harm was done, and everyone returned to their seats, Neal placing his harm around the shaken Yuki.

Dramatics aside, Daine continued to read.

**She'd had experience with crushes - none of her own, of course,**

Dom looked at Kel curiously; he couldn't wait to hear about the crushes she had had before him - although he was a little concerned that he wouldn't like what he heard.

He wasn't quite as jealous as Numair was notorious for, but he certainly wasn't looking forward to hearing about her relationship with the red-headed oaf, Kennan.

**but her older sisters Adalia and Oranie were very prone to them.**

Anders shook his heads this foolish, young, feminine sisters.

**Daine walked into the hall, closing the door gently behind her. "A horse?"**

**"He's contrary and mean," explained Neal, "and Kel here won't give him up. Keladry of Mindelan, this is Veralidaine Sarrasri. Daine, Kel."**

**Kel bowed.**

**"You're the one Bonedancer likes," Daine told her with a nod. "Lindhall says he's taken to you. And Neal doesn't like your horse."**

**Kel shrugged. She hardly knew what to say. She'd heard so many odd stories about this woman since her family had returned from the Yamani Islands.**

Daine laughed at Kel's embarrassed face. She was more than used to people thinking her odd.

**"We were thinking - I was thinking - you might take a look," explained Neal. "He's got a mouth like stone - can it be fixed? And he's mean clear through."**

**"Let me see him," Daine replied. "What's his name?" Her eyes focused on Kel's, as if she could see into the girl's heart.**

Numair smiled fondly at his dear, staring at her eyes from the side as she continued to read.

**"Peachblossom," Kel said.**

**It wasn't until Daine smiled that Kel could look away from those blue-gray eyes. "Peachblossom? Not one I know, but then, I have little to do with the nobles' horses," she explained. "Let's have a look at him."**

**Neal did the talking as they walked down to Peachblossom's stable. He asked Daine a great many questions about people Kel did not know. She followed them, feeling out of place.**

**When they entered the stable, all of the horses came to the front of their stalls to greet Daine. Shyly Kel pointed her gelding out. Daine went to Peachblossom and stood nose to nose with him, her hands cupped under the horse's chin. Peachblossom's ears were pricked forward with interest. He was more relaxed with Daine than Kel had ever seen him.**

**Neal made the mistake of trying to stroke him.**

Neal groaned in anticipation.

**Back went the gelding's ears; up went his head. Neal snatched away his hand. "Excuse **_**me," **_**he muttered.**

"Some things never change, Neal" winked Daine, obviously referring to his crush on her.

**Ignoring him, Daine ran her hands over the horse, inspecting every inch. Kel watched the examination. Peachblossom seemed to like Daine's touch.**

Of course he did, thought Numair lovingly. His wife was so passionate about the People that there was no way they wouldn't want to be around her.

**When she was finished, he rested his nose against her gown, which was now covered with horsehair.**

**"What do you want of him?" Daine asked Kel. "I can soften his mouth, but if you're forever dragging at the rein, it'll just get hard again. Stefan's done wonders with these scars, though Peachblossom says they still pain him some. I can mend those, but if you make him fight and you spur him as some do their mounts, he'll be scarred again. And I can't change his nature for you.**

"I would never have asked that of you Daine!" Kel immediately reacted.

Daine knew this, and kept reading, not bothering to respond to Kel.

**Peachblossom is who he is; no one has the right to take that away.****"**

"Someone should take away his murderous hatred of me," murmured Neal.

Kel loudly declared "I like him just how he is, thank you very much Meathead!"

**"I wouldn't ask it," Kel replied firmly. "We get on all right." Neal snorted. Kel ignored him, telling Daine, "If he didn't hurt from his scars, that might help, and softening his mouth would be a blessing. I'm not one for using the rein hard."**

**"That's what he says. He also says that if you promise never to use spurs, he'll mind his manners a bit more."**

**"She has to have spurs when we get to riding in armor," Neal pointed out. "The St-Lord Wyldon makes all the third- and fourth-years wear them."**

**"There are spurs that don't cut the horse," said Daine quietly. "Peachblossom will settle for those. You really want to keep him?"**

**Kel shrugged. "It's drawing carts or death if I don****'****t."**

Daine voice rung with pride and happiness at Kel's obvious compassion for the People.

**"I'll buy him," Daine offered. "I think I have enough. I'd take him off your hands and find you a better mount."**

**Peachblossom turned his head away from Daine to look at Kel. She felt a pang at the thought of losing him.**

"Ugh Kel, you're too attached for your own good!"

**She admired the big gelding's independence, the way he didn't seem to care if people liked him or not. She wished she could be more like that. Peachblossom would be happier with someone who could talk to him, though. Daine would be good to him.**

**Peachblossom put two hooves back, then two more. Another step, and he could turn away from Daine to face Kel. His ears twitched forward. When Kel, unbelieving, held out her open hand **

Neal winced,

**- as Neal winced-Peachblossom lowered his head and softly lipped her palm.**

**"That's that," remarked Daine. "He says you need looking after."****  
><strong>**"I never thought I'd end up agreeing with a horse," murmured Neal. Peachblossom's ears went flat. He blew a wad of spit onto Neal's shirt.**

Everyone was of course laughing. The antics between Neal and Peachblossom brought great humour to the more sombre events in the books.

**"He also says because he will let Kel ride him doesn't mean he has to be nice to everyone,****"**

Neal groaned at the reminder of all the pain he would suffer at Peachblossom's hand - or rather hooves!

**Daine remarked, her eyes twinkling. "Come to me, Peachblossom. We've still your hurts to mend." To Kel she added, "I'll teach him spoken commands for when you need him to go faster. You won't need spurs with those."**

**Neal walked Daine back to her rooms. Kel returned to the page's wing alone, feeling very much in the way and thinking of the classwork on her desk. On the way she stopped at the mess hall kitchen. She helped herself to an apple and begged two rolls for her sparrows from a cook.**

**She was near her room when voices drew her attention. They came from the hall ahead. "Pages are supposed to be graceful, not clumsy." Kel knew Joren's mocking tones well. She froze.**

Oops, thought Kel, some people were definitely not going to be happy at her revelations about hazing.

**"Clumsy?" She also knew Merric's voice.**

Merric looked at Kel desperately. He definitely didn't want 30 of Tortall's finest Knights, diplomats and mages to read this.

**Something clattered and crashed; a boy yelped. Kel turned into the hall to see what was going on.**

**Three older pages stood over Merric, who had fallen. Apparently he'd been carrying a heavy pitcher and cups on a tray. Now milk had splashed everywhere and the dishes lay in pieces.**

**"Don't just grovel there," jeered Vinson, one of Joren's friends. "Stand and mop it up.****"**

Wyldon groaned. He didn't want to hear about this. It would just remind him of his mistakes as training master.

**"Fetch us another pitcher of milk, and fresh cups," added Joren. "How can we study if we are thirsty?"**

**Kel clenched her fists. It was the custom that Anders had described, **

"This is definitely not what I meant though, this is much more extreme. This is bullying not hazing." said Anders in a concerned voice. Although he knew his little sister could handle herself, heck she was a better Knight than he was, he would always see her as the 3 year old girl shipped off to the Yamani Isles.

**the one in which older pages made first-years do errands to earn their right to be considered true pages. Kel had done such errands herself for the prince. Most senior pages understood that first-years had little time for their work and gave them tasks that were small and quickly done. But she'd heard whispers that Joren liked the custom a bit too much, and liked to add a bit of pain to his errands.**

**Merric stood, dripping milk, his pale face crimson with shame. "I'll need cloths," he said.**

**Joren planted his hand on the smaller boy's back and shoved. Merric's feet slipped; he flew forward, landing on his face again.**

Merric was flushing bright red.

Alanna seeing this piped up "Don't worry Sir Merric - I was bullied terribly in my first years as a page…"

All of the younger generation looked at the King's Champion in shock. No one could imagine anyone bullying her. She was fierce, strong and frankly quite intimidating.

Alanna explained, "I was always small for my age, not made easy by the fact that I was actually a girl! I got hazed really badly, and no matter what Raoul, Gary and Jon tried to do to help me, I had to sort it out myself - as I'm sure Kel is about to realise."

**"Use what you're wearing for cloths," Joren said merrily. "They're doing well enough so far!"**

**"And shut up while you're at it," added Vinson.**

**The third member of their trio, Zahir, caught sight of Kel. He elbowed Joren and pointed to her.**

Jon face froze in recognition of the fact that his own Squire had been bullying the poor first year. He knew that Zahir had been friends with both Joren and Vinson, but it was different to read about it from a first hand perspective.

**"Get mopping," Joren ordered Merric. "Every drop, mind." He turned to Kel. "What's the matter with **_**you, probationer?" **_**he demanded coldly.**

Dom clenched his fists. He would not be able to deal with Joren in these books.

**Kel clenched her fists. "This is servants' work," she said. "It has nothing to do with being a page and fetching and carrying for people. It isn't what's meant by earning our way.****"**

Ilane and Piers were proud that their daughter was standing up for her beliefs, but Anders was not so naive, and knew that Kel could not interefere.

**Joren took a step forward. "This is none of your affair - unless you want what he's getting."**

**Merric looked at Kel, then away. Kel remained where she was, frozen with indecision. They were older, taller, and faster, with every muscle trained hard by Lord Wyldon. These student warriors would outrank her in the Yamani Islands. There she would owe them her obedience.**

**In Yaman, picking on a younger warrior would be considered a waste of the time owed to your overlord, she thought numbly.**

**If I interfere, I might give Lord Wyldon an excuse to get rid of me, she realized.**

Wyldon was disappointed at the conundrum which Keladry faced; do the just thing and act, do the expected thing and back off. This was not what it mean to be a Knight. This was not chivalrous.

**Joren's face went even harder. He came down the hall, fists raised.**

**For the first time in her life, Keladry of Mindelan ran from a fight with a bully. Reaching the safety of her room, she locked the door behind her. Even there, she thought she could still hear the laughter that had followed her escape.**

"You did the right thing, Kel," Neal whispered. Merric, hearing this, nodded fiercely.

**Somehow she managed a little classwork before the bell rang for bed. She got into her nightdress and crawled under the covers, shivering. Over and over she saw the scene in her mind, with poor Merric outnumbered and unable to fight back. He'd been right to be afraid, she told herself repeatedly. **_**She'd **_**been right to be afraid. Giving way to superior force was how their world worked. Someday she and Merric both would show Joren and his crew how it felt to be humiliated and afraid.**

**So, if she thought they would fear her, why didn't she feel better? She'd done the wise thing. Hadn't she?**

"You did, Keladry. You know that." said the Stump, of all people.

**You could tell on them, a voice whispered in her heart. You know they tripped Merric deliberately. No one is supposed to take the earning-your-way custom that far.**

All Knights in the room flinched at the thought. Pages were not tattletales. They dealt with their problems or suffered in silence. There was a code, and it must be followed.

**She flinched at the thought. Pages were not tattletales. They dealt with problems or suffered in silence. Everyone would despise her for breaking that unwritten law. Wyldon would despise her. Her brothers would shake their heads in shame. She would be sent home.**

**You saw a bad thing done and you didn't raise a hand or speak out, argued her better self. Could you swear a knight's oath, knowing that you once let bullies get away with it?**

Jon had spent the past few minutes shaking his head, incredulous at the inherent sense of justice in Kel - she really was the Protector of the Small.

**If I get in fights, won't Lord Wyldon use that as an excuse to be rid of me?**

**Perhaps not. She'd heard Anders's stories. Pages were **_**expected **_**to fight, win or lose, and take the punishments doled out. Alanna the Lioness was in fights as a page.**

"Damn right I was," she sat up proudly.

**She got punished for them all. She took her punishment and never gave up the names of those she'd fought with.**

Jon, Raoul and Gary chuckled. They remembered the frequent times Kel would come to the mess hall covered in bruises, or dirt, or cuts and blood. She took a battering as a page.

**That was how things were done.**

**Of course none of them had been on probation. Only Keladry of Mindelan was served **_**that **_**bowl of sour soup.**

**Stop feeling sorry for yourself! she scolded,**

Wyldon was surprised. While he liked Kel well enough now, when she was a page he had presumed all she had spent her time doing was wallowing in self-pity.

**trying to find a spot in her bed that wasn't hot from her thrashing around. We don't argue with custom; we obey it. Wiser people than us started such things, it's as simple as that.**

**But what if custom is wrong? demanded the part of her that believed in the code of chivalry. A knight must set things right.**

Roald looked at Kel carefully. She had such a great set of right and wrong. And although, this year she had shown herself to be a fabulous Lady Knight Commander of the King's Own, he couldn't help but think that she would be equally suited to another role… And, he considered, maybe one day, when I'm King, and Dad's generation is done with official warrior business, maybe then, I can offer Kel the kind of position she could never deny.

**I'm not a knight yet, she told herself, punching a pillow that seemed determined to smother her. I'm not even a real page. I'll worry about things like that when I am.**

**Shouldn't I worry about them all along? If I don't worry about them as a page or a squire, why should I care when I am a knight?**

Wyldon shook his head at the probationary page's moral fibre.

**At last she slept.**

**The first thing she noticed that was not part of her unhappy night was the prickle of tiny claws on her hand. She opened her eyes and looked down. A sparrow - the female with the spot on her head that Kel had named Crown - stood on her hand, looking at her. Crown turned her head this way and that, as if trying to decide what to do with this great lazy girl who lay abed when the sun was about to rise.**

Most in the room would definitely not label Kel a 'great lazy girl'.

**Kel looked at her windows, certain she had not opened the lower set of shutters the night before. She was right. Only the small upper shutters were open. Crown had flown in through those, seeing well enough in the pre-dawn glow to land safely on Kel.**

**It seemed the bird had exhausted her supply of patience. She jumped onto Kel's chin and pecked her gently on the nose.**

Kel missed being woken up every morning by Crown and Nari. Her third generation of sparrows still visited her often in her quarters with the Own, but they preferred to sleep on the edge of the Royal Forest. Kel was glad of this, but missed them dearly.

**"All right," Kel croaked. At the first movement of her chin, the bird hopped back to her chest. "Tell your friends I'm coming."**

**Crown flew up and out of the open shutters, for all the world as if she had understood.**

**Neal said the animals around here are strange, Kel thought, tossing her blankets aside. I guess he's right.**

Everyone knew that all the animals in the Palace were different - and they all knew it was because of the wild girl reading this chapter.

**Lurching to the windows, she opened the lower shutters. The sparrow flock, brown and tan females and black-collared males alike, sat on the sill in a line, watching her.**

**"I hope you had a better night than I did," Kel told them, getting her rolls and seed.**

**In the mess hall, Neal squinted at her as she toyed with her breakfast. "You look as bad as I feel," he croaked. "Where's the sunny smile? The 'Hello, Neal, isn't it a **_**wonderful **_**day to be alive in the royal palace?' pain-in-the-bum greeting I usually get?****"**

Kel shoved her elbows into Neal's side. Although inside she was smiling She missed spending everyday with her best friend; she missed their banter.

**Kel considered shoving her porridge into his face and decided against it. "I don't know," she said at last. "Why don't you go look for it?"**

**Neal sat up. "Ouch. It bites."**

**"What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded sharply, tired of hiding the way she felt. "That I'll say 'yes' and 'so mote' to anything, smile and go along no matter what? Never argue, never complain?****"**

"Jeeeeeeeze, Kel, what's gotten into you? Did somebody put hot peppers in your wash water." drawled Neal.

**Neal looked more awake with every word. He ran his fingers through his hair. "What's gotten into you? Did somebody put hot peppers in your wash water?****"**

"Gosh some people never change…"

**"Nothing." Kel slammed her bowl onto her tray and carried it to the servants.**

**Neal stopped her at the mess door. "Did anything happen last night after you left?****"**

"Damn you and your insightfulness, Neal" Kel complained.

**"Nothing," she said, biting off the words. "Not one gods-blest thing." She left him to finish breakfast and went back to her room for her practice jacket.**

**She was halfway there when Cleon stopped her. He was a third-year page, a joker who still sported a tan from days spent in his father's fields, bringing in the harvest.**

Dom jokingly said "Ah finally, alone time for our lovers!"

Kel did not laugh, and Cleon did not laugh, but Kel's year mates had a laugh.

**"Page, I need my archer's glove," he told her with a grin. "Run to my room and fetch it." When Kel frowned at him, not wanting to be bothered just then, he flapped his hands. "Run along, now. Don't take all day. You don't want punishment duty for being late."**

**As far as she knew, Cleon wasn't one of Joren's friends. He was just being a pain; the broad grin on his face told her that much.**

Kel's brother nodded; "see that's the kind of hazing that is acceptable!"

**What if I refused? she wondered, even as her feet started down the hall, carrying the rest of her with them. What could he do to me?**

**But she didn't refuse. If I'm to be a coward when I think someone goes too far with the custom, I might as well be one all the time, she thought bitterly. She ran to do as she was bid.**

**She caught up to Cleon as the pages were filing into their first practice of the day, and thrust his archery glove into his face. "Very good," he said, taking it. "You know, we all thought you wouldn't last this long."**

**Kel stared at him, thinking, What an odd thing to say! "Last this long today, or last this long for five weeks?" she asked.**

**"In training. You know." He spread his arms, taking in their surroundings. "Everyone had bets on that you'd run home before a week was up." He shook his head, smiling. "You might want to run now, while you still have the strength. Lord Wyldon will never let you stay.****"**

Kel scowled at Cleon; she'd forgotten what a prick he'd been in her first year!

**"He might surprise you," Kel retorted, keeping her face Yamani-smooth.**

Cleon looked at Kel oddly… "He never surprises anyone."

**Cleon smiled oddly. "He never surprises anyone." He sauntered into the yard.**

**Maybe he doesn't know Lord Wyldon as well as he thinks he does,**

Neal laughed, "And what, you know the Stump well, Kel?"

**Kel thought grimly as she followed him through the gate. I have to believe that.**

Daine finished up the chapter smiling, she'd enjoyed reading about herself, Neal's little crush and of course Peachblossom. She put the scroll down in her lap, looking around for someone to read the next chapter.

Raoul looked at the scroll and took it from Daine, placed it on the floor under his bench and announced that he was starving.

Everyone else in the Hall were also famished so it was agreed they'd head to the mess for dinner.

Kel was the last to file out of the Hall, just as she was about to shut the door, she heard a very familiar voice boom, "Don't you leave without talking to me, Lady Knight."

She paused, turned around, and slipped back into the Chamber without anyone noticing.

_**Hey guys! Wow 3.5k views on my story now! I**__**'**__**m so happy :)**_

_**I**__**'**__**m going to be travelling this weekend and for the next 2 weeks so updates may be sporadic, but check back often, cause you never know!**_

_**I**__**'**__**d like to take a quick moment to thank all of you that review, specifically those who review as Guests so I can**__**'**__**t reply (I reply to all my other reviews hehe).**_

_**Thank you Peona (your review was so kind and comforting!), Morgan (for your persistence) and Ann (for your encouragement).**_

_**Emily**_


	12. The Chamber

No one noticed the figure slip back into the Hall.

She turned around and walked towards the front of the room. As she walked down the aisle she was confronted with harsh memories. Memories of the times she had previously communicated with this ethereal being.

Kel knocked on huge iron doors. They swung open immediately.

He had been expecting her.

"Lady Knight," a voice boomed. "It's been years, and not a word from you!"

Kel replied "I am sorry, but as you certainly know is that I have been completing a little quest which you assigned me. Besides, surely, time isn't an issue for you."

The Chamber responded: "It is true I am not part of your idea of time… but you have to admit that I did not assign you on a quest searching for love."

Kel blushed. "Well I'm here now, and I think I can guess why you asked me in; you had something to do with these books didn't you?"

"Whilst my cousins Mithros and the Great Mother Goddess may claim to have composed the scrolls that detail your life, they are neglecting to mention who gave them the means to compose the scrolls. I once told you that you mortals are like fish swimming in a globe of glass. That globe is your world. You do not see beyond it. I, and only I, am all around that globe, everywhere at once. Whilst my cousins are all powerful, they are neither omniscient nor omnipresent."

Kel nodded, trying to follow; "And the scrolls?"

"Right," the voice continued, "You do not see beyond your time, but I do. I had visions of the future; of a woman who would write a tale of a Lady Knight. She received a quest from me, just as you did. Her quest was to write. I fed her information in dreams, just as I did with you and Lady Alanna. As soon as she was done, I arranged for Mithros and the Great Mother Goddess to arrange this little rendez-vous."

The Chamber continued "Lady Knight, I have already given you a quest once before, and you completed it with vigour beyond my wildest dreams. Whilst Lady Alanna had the patronage of the Great Mother Goddess, you have mine."

Shocked, Kel stood mouth agape. Never before had she heard of the Chamber act like this. Never before in the Human Era had a Knight been given multiple quests by the Chamber. In fact, her and Alanna had been the only knights to receive a single quest! She would need to talk with Master Numair as soon as this was over.

"Lady Knight, you are a figure of fine moral character. You are a once in an Era Knight. You have helped me once to restore the balance of life and death, and you will do so again before your time is up. Lady Knight, you will fulfil your destiny as protector of the small."

Kel's eyes blanked over and her knees buckled. She fell sideways onto the hard, cold stone floor.

Kel had a vision, a vision of a vast barren landscape. She would have thought it to be the landscape of the south of Tortall, in the desert lands of the Bazhir tribes. Then she looked closer; and recognised the undulations of the sand dunes as the hills of Corus, the sweeping valley which the Olorun ran through, she recognised a mound of ruins; a mound which could only be the Palace. Kel's mind was blank.

"I see into your heart, Lady Knight, as I have seen into the hearts of every knight before you, and will see into the hearts of every knight after you. I am neither divine nor mortal, and it is my only role to maintain the balance between life and death. This balance is threatened, and it is on you and the heroes of Tortall to restore the balance. These books, and the books to follow, will enlighten you and your companions on your strengths and weaknesses, and the strengths and weaknesses of your enemies. This is your quest." The voice paused, "I am in your yesterdays and your tomorrows, just as I am in your today, and it all looks the same to me - but for the devastation that Tortall will suffer if the balance between life and death is not once again is your quest." The voice concluded its speech, the dim lighting that had lit the Chamber shut off. The room was dark and cold and empty, apart from the mound of flesh and clothes piled at the door.

Only a blue eyed sergeant had missed Kel's presence at lunch. After wolfing down his meal he stood up and headed back to the Hall. Only a pair of sharp green eyes had noticed Dom leave the mess, and he followed his cousin.

On entering the Hall, Neal was met with a shock. He saw his cousin knelt over a body. It was Kel, he was sure of it. Come to think of it, she hadn't been at lunch. Neal raced forward.

"Neal, she's breathing but faintly. It looks like some sort of magic has knocked her out. We need Numair."

Immediately Neal stood, and looking in the direction of the mess he whispered. Three strands of emerald green magic exploded from his fingers.

Within minutes Dom could hear the unmistakeable noise of feet running down a stone corridor.

Lady Alanna, Duke Baird and Master Numair hurried up to the front of the Hall where Dom and Neal cradled Kel.

Dom explained that the doors to the Chamber of the Ordeal had swung open as he approached them, and he had found Kel collapsed near the door. He refrained from mentioning that he had been frightened out of his wits on entering the Chamber - it was terribly superstitious, he knew, but someone who was not experiencing the Ordeal of Knighthood should not enter the Chamber. He had entered and had a vision, of the woman he loved astride a horse, standing on the peak of a sandy dune. Dom hadn't the faintest idea what he had seen, distracted as he was by Kel's state.

The combined purple, green and black gifts of Numair, Alanna and Baird penetrated Kel's skin. Her eyes flashed open, shockingly haunted. They propped Kel up on the bench.

She croaked "Thank you, I'm fine now. I just passed out, overwhelmed. Please, don't tell anyone of this I don't want to worry them. I will explain once we have finished reading, it is not urgent."

Not satisfied, but unable to ask anymore questions as people re-entered the Hall having finished lunch, Alanna, Numair and Baird returned to their seats on the other side of the room, whilst Neal and Dom sat next to Kel, bolstering her up so she didn't appear so frail to everyone.

Oblivious to the happenings in the room only moments before, Raoul cheerfully reached for the scrolls he had placed under his chair, picked them up and began to read excitedly "**The Lance."**

**What you recognise is taken from Tamora Pierce's works; I do not own nor do I profit from this.**

**I hope you guys enjoy the twist in plot! I thought I may as well add a bit of action and anticipation to give the story a bit more fibre and direction.**

**:) **


	13. The Lance

"**THE LANCE****," **Raoul read, the eagerness clear in his voice! He believed this chapter would include his debut! And he was excited to hear Kel's thoughts the first time she jousted.

**That morning, when the pages arrived at the stable, new equipment had been placed beside their normal gear. The most important item, a saddle, boasted a high, padded front and back.**

Kel and her year mates groaned at the thought of these saddles which were excruciatingly painful.

**Extra hands had come to show the first-years how to handle the new items: saddle, reins, double girths, and breast collars. Kel was glad to see that the man in Peachblossom's stall was the hostler Stefan. He was no common stablehand, yet he didn't seem to mind teaching her. Once he'd put the new saddle on her gelding and fastened every strap, he removed it and told Kel to try. Peachblossom sighed and shifted on his feet, just as Kel did when she was tired of dress fittings.**

Lalasa laughed, able to picture all too well how Peachblossom was acting, having fitted Kel for dresses many times.

**"Peachblossom says you didn't want Daine changing him," Stefan remarked, eyes following Kel as she positioned the saddle.**

"I wouldn't have done it anyway" commented Daine.

**"She wouldn't do it," wheezed Kel. The new gear was **_**heavy**_**.**

And you were weak, thought Kel. Her sentiment reflected her feelings at the moment. She was drained from her experience with the Chamber, and a little confused.**  
><strong>**"But you didn't want her to," Stefan repeated.****  
><strong>**Kel shrugged. "It seemed bad. Like, I don't know, like taking his soul.****"**

Daine's grin was wide.

**"Not that buckle, the one next to it," Stefan told her a minute later, pointing.**

Dom was finding it strange hearing about Kel struggling with Peachblossom, as from the moment he knew her as a Squire, she already had an affinity with him and Hoshi.

**Red-faced, Kel released the strap in her fingers and picked up the right one. "He also says you promised not to rowel him."**

**Kel stared at the bandy-legged hostler, not sure what he meant. Then she remembered: **_**rowel **_**was another name for the pointed star-shaped type of spur favored by many knights. "That's right," she said, checking the girths.**

**"How will you get him to go faster?" Stefan wanted to know.**

**"She gave me words to say to him," replied Kel.**

**Stefan nodded. "She's clever, that Daine.****"**

Daine smiled. She liked Stefan, he had a little horse magic, which made him perfect for a job in the stables, because he could understand the horses.

**He cleared his throat and said gruffly, "I didn't think you'd be one for the spur. Try to mount, now.****"**

Kel now realised, that from Stefan, that was quite a compliment!

**That took practice. Kel banged her leg a few times before she managed to clear the high back. "I have to do this in **_**armor**_**?" she asked Stefan, who only grinned. Kel wriggled in the saddle,**

Kel was embarrassed at her incompetence, but everyone else was enjoying seeing her struggle as a youth, when as an adult she was incredibly talented.

**testing her ability to move once she was seated. Peachblossom waited patiently for her to settle down. "About Peachblossom-I'd like to know who treated him so badly," she added, gathering her reins.**

Wyldon sighed; why did Kel have to be so damn compassionate about everyone! It made it so hard to dislike her…

"Oh Mother, always looking out for the small, aren't you?" Dom drawled.

Kel simply elbowed him in retaliation.

**The little man chuckled. "Don't fret about that," he replied. "Leave it to me. The one that did it, he won't abuse another mount. You have my word.****"**

Daine grinned.

**He slapped Peachblossom on the rear, sending the gelding out of the stall.**

**Once outside, Kel leaned down and told the horse, "I think I'll stay on his good side. Just in case."**

**As usual, she was the last page to reach the long riding yard. Wyldon stood just inside the gate, a row of lances set against the fence beside him. Joren stood there, too. As each page rode by, Joren passed a lance up to him. He even passed one to Neal. By the time Kel reached Joren, only one of the twelve-foot-long weapons remained.**

Hearing this Kel realised how easy it would have been for Joren to switch out her lance for a weighted one.

No one was going to be particularly happy to hear about what Joren did to her lance, but, to be honest, Kel was really appreciative to Joren for weighting her lance. It had really built up her strength and definitely contributed to her skills as a jouster.

**Joren ignored her and mounted his horse.**

**"Take it," Wyldon ordered Kel, with a sharp nod at the lance.**

**Leaning down, she gripped the weapon and dragged it to her.**

**It was like a very long staff in most ways. There was an indented grip cut into the wood eighteen inches from the butt, and the wood above the grip flared out to protect the bearer's hand. This weapon should never slide out of her hold. The lance was heavier than a staff, too. Kel gritted her teeth and settled the butt of the lance on the edge of her stirrup, as Lord Wyldon did.**

Raoul had read this paragraph with excitement! He couldn't wait to read about jousting, it was really his favourite thing.

**The pages lined up. As Kel guided Peachblossom into line beside Seaver, Wyldon rode to stand in****front of them.**

**"Before the immortals came, there was a clamor to cut jousting from tournaments,****"**

Raoul read this with clear resentment to whoever thought that was a good idea.

He was also reminded that he should challenge Lord Wyldon to a joust soon, he was a good challenge.

**he said loudly. "It was said to be too risky. Even with a coromanel, a wide-faced piece, on the lance tip, to soften the impact, it was too dangerous. So few battles are fought between mounted knights, it was said. It was time to retire the lance. Tradition must change to come in step with modern times.****"**

"The Stump, acknowledging that tradition must change to come in step with modern times… surely not" laughed Neal.

Wyldon rebutted him "Well I obviously did not agree, Sir Meathead, for I am a skilled jouster!"

**Wyldon turned his mount toward the far end of the field. There Kel saw five quintains-dummies painted like warriors and set on wooden posts. In place of each quintain's left arm was a wooden shield with a target circle painted on it.**

Kel laughed heartily in remembrance of the wooden shield with a target circle. If she were to joust know against such a target she would be able to nail it with her eyes shut!

**In place of the right arm was a pole weighted at the end by a sandbag.**

**Lord Wyldon braced his lance under his right arm and lowered it until it was level. Once in place, it pointed at an angle across the mare's withers, into the air on Wyldon's left.**

**"My lord?" asked Merric, raising a hand.****  
><strong>**Lord Wyldon raised his eyebrows.****  
><strong>**"Shouldn't it stick out straight in front of you, not across your saddle horn?****"**

Everyone in the room laughed at this, especially Raoul, Wyldon and Kel.

**The older pages chuckled; Merric turned bright red at their amusement. "Have you seen many tournaments?" Lord Wyldon inquired.**

Merric was once again bright red, eyes averted from the circle.**  
><strong>**Merric shook his head, still blushing. "None, my lord."**

**"I could do it that way," the training master said. "Of course, I'd point my knee into the open air at my enemy's side. I'd risk walloping my own mount in the head. I assure you, they don't care for that. And once my lance goes past my opponent, what would happen?"**

**Merric shook his head, speechless.**

Current day Merric was also shaking his head, speechless at his ignorance.

**"Your horse rams your opponent's mount head on," Prince Roald said quietly. "Chances are you wouldn't be able to get him out of the way in time.****"**

Prince Roald was nodding at his answer.

**"Aim for your opponent's chest with the lance pointed straight ahead, and by the time you've hit him, you cannot turn your horse aside," Lord Wyldon told them. "Strike his shield at the right point, and the power of your blow will either break the shield or drive him all the way out of the saddle - and you can still turn your mount **_**away **_**from the enemy. Do you understand now?" he asked Merric.**

Merric was blushing fiercely. It seemed it wasn't only Kel who was going to suffer torment from these readings.

**The boy nodded.**

**"Always leave an escape route for your charger," Lord Wyldon said. He turned to face the quintain. Kicking his horse into a run, he thundered down on the target. As he neared it, he stood and leaned forward. His lance tip struck the circle painted on the quintain's shield. The dummy swung a half turn, and Wyldon thundered by. At the end of the yard, he turned his bay gelding, riding back to the line of pages.**

**"What is the best defense for a lone knight against a giant?" he cried. "The lance!" shouted the older pages.**

Raoul also decided to shout out these responses, so enthusiastic to read more and more about jousting.**  
><strong>**"What is the best defense against an ogre?" he demanded.****  
><strong>**"The lance!" shouted all of the pages.**

**"What is the best defense against a spidren?" he wanted to know.****  
><strong>**"A lance!" yelled his audience.****  
><strong>**"Against a charging line of foot soldiers?" Now the riding master joined them, carrying his own lance. "A lance!" cried everyone.**

"If the soldiers aren't armed with pikes," Neal muttered.**  
><strong>**"If the foot soldiers aren't armed with pikes, anyway," Kel heard Neal mutter.**

Wyldon blinked… he was loath to admit it but Neal was right.

**Kel blinked. Neal was right. Pikes were heavy spears fourteen feet or longer. Used properly, they were defeat for horsemen, who speared their mounts on the pikes before they got within striking distance of the pikemen.**

And it seemed that 11 year old Kel had realised this before him.

**Wyldon halted in front of them. "A knight these days relies on the lance as much as the sword,****"**

Kel considered this, although she used the lance in tournaments, she rarely touched it in the field - it was too cumbersome. The glaive was a much more efficient alternative.

**he said quietly. "To use it, you must perfect both horsemanship and weapon. If you hit the quintain" - he pointed****to the swinging dummy-"anywhere but that target circle, you will get a buffet from the sandbag to make the lesson stick.**

All men (and women) who had trained for Knighthood winced.

**And it must stick. Immortals and enemy infantry do not forgive mistakes."**

**He dismounted and waved a fourth-year page to a line of chalk drawn across the near end of the yard. "I want you new lads up on this line. Watch the older ones as they charge. Notice they change position as they approach the target. See how the lance is couched, and gripped."**

**The first-years obeyed. They watched sharply as page after page took his place on the line, settled his lance, and set his horse at the quintain. The fourth-year pages hit their target almost every time, but the younger the rider, the more likely it was that the sandbag would spin around and thump him as he rode by. At last it was the turn of the first-year pages. Kel grew more and more nervous, wiping sweaty palms on her sturdy practice clothes. She knew before he struck the target that Neal would miss the circle.**

"Thanks Kel…" drawled Neal.

Alanna smiled at the Lady Knight - "I'm glad you were around to humble Neal as a Page!"

**She covered her eyes as the sandbag thudded into his back. At least he couldn't be knocked out of the new saddle and onto the ground.**

**We thank the gods for the blessings we have, she thought gloomily, **

"How cheerful, Kel."

**and toed Peachblossom over to the chalk line. Behind her the senior pages lined up. They would ride at the quintain again once she was done.**

**Wyldon strode over briskly. He resettled Kel's grip on the lance with impersonal hands,**

How did he not notice it was weighted? Kel thought… I guess he was used to the much heavier tournament lance than a page's practice lance, weighted or not.

**checked her saddle, and stood away at last. "The lance will slide back when you strike," he told her as he'd told the other first-years. "Let it. Now, lower it across your chest, till it points out over your mount's left shoulder. Once it's down, keep that point level!"**

**Kel struggled to raise the lance. It was quite happy to be lowered, and agonizingly hard to raise.**

Raoul laughed; "Gods, young Kel, you really were a weakling!"

Kel just smiled meekly, not looking forward to the revelation that Joren had interfered with one of her weapons.

**"Go!" ordered Wyldon.**

**Kel leaned forward, her back and shoulder muscles protesting as she fought to keep the lance tip from sagging.**

"It really isn't that difficult, Kel!" exclaimed Raoul again.

"I know, sir, who was it bested you last week 3 times?!" reminded Kel sharply.

Raoul decided his best response was to keep reading.

**"Charge," she ordered Peachblossom.**

**The gelding took off, his speed thrusting Kel against the back of her saddle.****  
><strong>**"Get your point up! Get it up!" cried Wyldon in a battlefield roar that cut through the thunder of****Peachblossom's hooves. "Raise your **_**point!"**_

**Kel fought the weapon and her fear of the horse. Never had she suspected that a full gallop on Peachblossom would feel like riding an avalanche.**

Kel chuckled at her 11 year old self - how accurate, she thought.

**I should have just said, "Go faster," she thought weakly as the target loomed. Wrestling with the lance, she just clipped the shields edge. The quintain spun. The sandbag crashed into her side as Peachblossom thundered by.**

Those in the room who had only seen Kel joust as a very talented Squire and Knight were shocked to think that Kel was so incapable as a page. Then again, it was her first time.

**Kel dragged on the reins as hard as she would have the day before. Peachblossom, already slowing, reared in protest against the pain in his newly soft mouth.**

Poor Peachblossom, thought Daine.

**The back on the jousting saddle kept her in her seat, just barely. Peachblossom walked backward, doing his best to keep her from falling. Kel loosened the reins, taking the pressure off the bit. Slowly the horse dropped until all four feet were planted firmly on the ground.**

"Haha, what a spectacle," laughed Dom, "I wish I had been there to witness you flailing on that beast of yours… Oh wait, I was!"

Kel could only look embarrassedly at the floor, trying to ignore the laughter of Dom and Raoul.

**Kel leaned forward, the weight of her lance dragging at her arm. ****"****I'm sorry," she whispered to the gelding. "I forgot your mouth. I won't do it again."**

**"The horse is too big for that page," someone called. "I'm surprised you let him ride that gelding, Cavall."**

**Kel wilted.**

Present day Kel wilted also.

**The pages had learned to ignore onlookers in the practice yards. She hadn't even noticed that an audience had gathered or thought that anyone in the audience might care enough to comment.**

**"The probationer picked that mount herself, Goldenlake," replied Wyldon coldly. "She had a choice of horses, just like the others.****"**

Jon laughed cooly, "Now I understand why you chose her as Squire, Raoul, even as a page she was extraordinarily talented with the lance…"

Kel wanted to die of humiliation from the King's sarcastic comments about her.

**Humiliated, Kel braced her lance on her stirrup - once it was upright, she could control the wretched thing - and turned Peachblossom.**

**A squad of warriors mounted on fine horses watched from outside the yard's fence. They wore the chain mail, blue and silver tunic, and white desert burnoose of the King's Own, the crown's elite guard.**

"Yay! It is us, the most elite of soldiers!"

"Oh shut it Dom, you sound like Meathead."

**Kel wished she could just sink into the ground and prayed that her Yamani schooling kept the****humiliation out of her face. These men were as admired as knights, and they had seen her disgraceful try. Most were grinning.**

"Of course we were, Kel, we loved watching you train as a page. We used to watch often, and make bets on how you'd fair!"

Kel looked, shock evident in her face, at Dom. How humiliating…

**One of them, a very tall, **

and gallant looking man, with handsome eyes and a delicious complexion,

Buri took the scroll from her husband: "If you won't be sensible reading Raoul, then I will have to take over from you…" she warned.

Raoul got the message, retook the scrolls and kept reading seriously.

**big man with rosy cheeks and black eyes, stared at Kel. "This is the girl?" he asked, startled. It was he who had commented to Wyldon.**

**The training master grimaced. "Keladry of Mindelan. She knows she may exchange her mount for another, and has chosen not to do so. Have you something we may assist you with?"**

**The big man shook his head. "Not this time. We've reports of a lone tauros**

Everyone grimaced. Whilst hurroks and other more vicious immortals had largely been eradicated, tarouses still ran amok around Tortall.

**sighted near one of the fishing villages upriver.****"**

Everyone grimaced further. They caused particular trouble near said villages, where they were known to target peasant women, unable to defend themselves.

**Kel was trying to remember what a tauros was when a Bazhir with the squad commented dryly, "No doubt it is a strayed bull."**

**That's it, Kel remembered. Tauroses were creatures with bull's heads and men's bodies, huge, witless monsters who preyed on women.**

**"Stray bull or not, we'll handle it," said the big rider. "You and your lot will get the chance to help us soon enough, Cavall.****"**

Oooh, Kel thought, she couldn't wait to read about their trip with the Own. It was Kel's final chance to prove herself as a probationary page, and my had she succeeded.

Kel also laughed internally, supposing that even as a page she had belonged with the Own.

Whilst it was unusual for a Knight to ally herself so obviously with a particular group of Tortall's armed forces, ever since she got her Knighthood, Kel would most often be found training with the Own, eating with the Own, so much so that Jon had appointed her to be an assistant of sorts to Raoul, as Raoul had expressed his intention to retire after the Scanran War.

Kel, as a woman in her early twenties, had been the youngest Commander of any group in the armed forces, ever appointed. And also, the first female Commander of the Own.

**He touched his fingers to his forehead in an ironic salute, and rode off at the front of the squad.**

**"If we may proceed?" Wyldon asked the pages. "You will have plenty of chances to gawk at Raoul of Goldenlake in the future."**

**Kel bit the inside of her cheek. Raoul of Goldenlake was the Knight Commander of the King's Own, one of the realm's finest warriors.**

"Raoul! I told you not to embellish Kel's descriptions of you," warned Buri.

"No," Raoul protested, "see here, Kel really said that about me."

Raoul looked at his prodigy lovingly. He had become a sort of father figure to her, and could not be more proud of the woman and warrior she had become.

Kel looked at Raoul affirming this, with respect evident in her eyes.

**Neal rode over to her. "Are you all right? You have the oddest look on your face."**

**Kel shook her head. "I'm just embarrassed. I don't suppose you know how to make people vanish."**

**"It's not something they teach healers," he said dryly, riding to the starting line with her. "If I could, I'd do it all the time. Don't fret. Nobody hits the mark their first day."**

**"But in front of Sir Raoul of Goldenlake," she replied in a low voice. "Who fought a giant **_**on foot **_**and won.****"**

Raoul read this with pride; not for his own accomplishments, but for his Squire's recognition of them, and the evidence that she respected him so greatly, even before she knew him. But he realised, that whilst she had had these positive prejudices before they met, during their time in the field together they had developed a wonderful relationship built on mutual respect, which was why he had recommended to Jon that she be appointment Lady Knight Commander, despite being relatively green for a Knight.

**"Actually, he's Lord Sir Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak - the king elevated him to the peerage in April," Neal informed her. "And it was only a twenty-foot giant.****"**

"Thanks Neal," Kel said drily, "that was a great comfort.."

**"Oh, well, I don't feel half so stupid now," muttered Kel. Time to change the subject. "What was that about us helping the King's Own?"**

**"The Stump likes us to get battle experience against immortals. If there's something close by, the King's Own takes us along."**

**Wyldon called, "You older pages practice separately. Get to it." They drifted to the other four quintains, leaving the first-years to practice under Wyldon's eye.**

**Wyldon beckoned to Quinden of Marti's Hill, indicating he should tilt next. "Excuse me, your lordship, but am I older or younger today?" Neal asked.**

"You're such a pest, Squire Neal," Alanna remarked.

Neal stared at her, pleading with her to stop the humiliation of being called a squire, it was almost worse than Meathead. Well not quite…

**"One day I will tie that insolent tongue of yours in a knot,****"**

"That day is yet to come, Sir Stump!" Neal said loftily.

Wyldon could only roll his eyes at Neal's persistent insolence.

**replied Wyldon absently as he watched Quinden settle his lance. "You may tilt with the first-years."**

**Kel saw Neal open his mouth to reply, and swung Peachblossom into Neal's brown mare. The mare skipped away as Peachblossom half turned, ensuring that the gelding caught just a fold of Neal's practice clothes in his teeth instead of Neal's right leg.**

"You encouraged that beast to attack me!? Keladry, I thought we were friends." Neal lamented dramatically.

"Oh shut it Neal, I was being your friend, protecting you from becoming a Carthaki skewer on Lord Wyldon's lance!"

**By the time Kel had persuaded her mount to release her friend, Neal had forgotten whatever answer he'd been about to give the training master.**

**Kel rode four more times at the quintain. Each try was a fight with the heavy lance; not once did she manage to keep the point high enough to strike the circle.**

By now Raoul was becoming suspicious. Sure Kel had only been an 11 year old girl, but unable to even lift the lance high enough, that was ridiculous.

**By her third run, her arms felt as weak as overcooked noodles. Kel dragged as she brushed Peachblossom, cleaned her new tack, cut her name onto her lance, and rubbed oil into it. Only when those chores were done could she return to the castle and her waiting bath.**

**"What's wrong?" Neal asked as they stood in line for lunch. "You've been quiet all day, not that you ever chatter." He peered at her so worriedly that Kel had to smile.**

Kel smiled at Neal, who was peering at her with that exact same look of concern; obviously still anxious about what had happened to her in the Chamber.

**"I didn't sleep well, that's all," she told him. "I'm sorry I was grumpy."**

**"Stop pushing, Esmond!" growled someone behind her. The next minute Kel was knocked out of line. Turning, she saw that the one who'd bumped her was Merric. Beet-red, he mumbled an apology and shoved Esmond in revenge. It gave him a reason to turn his back on Kel as she resumed her place.**

Merric's face was flushed to match his hair colour. He was ashamed that he had treated Kel so rudely, but at the time he was so embarrassed he didn't really have a choice!

**He can't even look at me, she thought miserably, leaning against the wall. And I can't look at him. Wonderful.**

**She was leaving to collect her books and papers when Cleon stopped her once again. "Page Keladry," he announced with a broad grin, "my flower, my dove,**

"Oh Cleon, not these ridiculous pet names!" exclaimed Kel.

She had forgotten how irritating they had been.

Dom meanwhile was shocked that Cleon's obvious admiration for Kel as a woman had begun so early. He really disliked the red headed oaf, for obvious reasons.

**I need more ink. Run along to stores and fetch me some."**

**"Leave her be, Cleon," said Neal sternly. "She's got enough to worry about without doing your errands."**

**Cleon stared at him. The senior pages were always cautious when it came to Neal. First-year or not, he was older and taller than all of them, and once he lost his temper, he didn't seem to care if he got hurt. **

Especially in defence of Kel, thought Neal. While he now thought of her as his younger sister, at the time he had had a huge crush on Kel! Thank the gods they weren't reading his account of their page and squire years, for he was sure it would have revealed his crush.

Despite those feelings leaving him, Neal was awfully defensive of Kel. As were her other year mates in fact. They had often gotten into brawls and even duels protecting her honour.

**Boys who thought nothing of pushing someone like Kel, Merric, or the other first-years around tended to leave Neal alone. "I didn't ask you, Neal," Cleon retorted at last. "She has to get used to running errands sometime."**

**"Even the nobles hardly ask us to do things for them," argued Neal hotly. "They know we're kept trotting."**

**Kel ran to do as she was told, shaking her head. Trust Neal to extend the whole matter by debating about it.**

Yuki shook her head also, all too familiar with Neal's unreasonable stubbornness.

**She made it to their first class just in time, handing Cleon his ink as she rushed to her seat. Only when she was down and had begun to sort out the mess of her own books and papers did she see how little she'd finished the night before. When Master Yayin, who taught reading and writing, requested her work, she stood and admitted that she didn't have it, as tradition demanded.**

Kel was sick of all this talk about tradition - then again, she supposed that it would be emphasised even more if she had attended the convent!

**The Mithran's thick brows came together in a scowl. "Very well, Page Keladry," he said, "report to us orally on the chapter you were to write about."**

**Kel swallowed hard, fighting to keep her feelings out of her face. "I did not read it, Master Yayin," she replied, staring past him.**

**"No sense arguing with a Lump," someone at the back of the room muttered.**

Everyone could hear Raoul, Kel's second father really, raise his voice in defence of Kel.

**"Silence!" the teacher snapped. His favored prop was a long wooden rod he used as a pointer. In the first week of classes, Kel had learned that the rod also indicated the teacher's moods. Now he tapped its point slowly and steadily on the floor.**

"Ouch," Neal articulated, "that's a bad sign."

**Bad sign, thought Kel, damp at her temples and palms. Very bad sign.**

**"Page Keladry, have you an explanation?"**

**Custom dictated only one reply. Explanations were regarded as excuses. I am stone, Kel reminded herself. "No, Master Yayin." She squeezed the words out of a tight throat.**

**"Page Keladry, if you cannot perform a modicum of the work required, you do not belong here," the teacher informed her coldly. "Reconsider your commitment to your studies. Tomorrow you will summarize the next three chapters in the book. Sit down."**

**Kel sat. She could hear snickers from the other pages, but she kept her face as smooth as stone.**

**In mathematics, she winced when she saw how creased and blotted her sheet of last night's problems was.**

At least she was rather good at maths, and was sure to at least get credit for her correct sums and good track record, Kel thought.

**She handed it in anyway, and sat through class with shoulders hunched, waiting for a reprimand. Master Ivor liked to correct their work at his desk as one of them solved a problem on a large slate in front of the room; somehow he did both easily. Papers, with his written comments, were handed back at****the end of the class. He gave Kel hers with raised eyebrows, then passed to the next student. She looked down and read the note he'd scrawled on the cleanest part of the paper: "I hardly believe this is yours. Redo it, **_**properly, **_**with tonight's assignment."**

**She could have kissed him,**

"You should have," drawled Neal, "would have made class somewhat tolerable."

**she was so relieved. At least he did not want to humiliate her, even though she'd disappointed him. Since mathematics was her favorite class, she hated the idea that he might think her lazy.**

**Sir Myles did not assign written work, only reading, and didn't call on Kel for anything. The thought that he might kept her nervous through the class - she couldn't even remember what he'd assigned until the boys he did call on talked about the material. On her way out of class, Sir Myles asked, "Keladry? Might I have a word?"**

**"He probably wants to know what the Yamani emperor has for breakfast," Neal muttered out of the side of his mouth.**

Kel frowned at Neal, as did Yuki.

**Kel frowned at her friend and walked up to the plump teacher's desk. It took an effort of will to keep her hands flat at her sides, not twisting nervously together. "Is everything well?" Sir Myles wanted to know. "You look wan.****"**

Alanna smiled happily at her foster-father, happy that he was keeping an eye on Kel, for her.

**"Sir?" she asked, puzzled by the word and wondering why he'd singled her out.**

"I singled you out, Keladry, because you looked horridly ill and tired. And of course, I had a little motivation from my lovely foster-daughter to ask after you, and convey news," explained Myles.

**"Tired, pale. Exhausted. Are you getting enough rest? The boys aren't hounding you, are they?"**

**Kel shook her head nervously. "No, sir. I'm fine. Couldn't be better.****"**

Raoul said this last sentence with a rather ironic tone.

**His beautifully curved eyebrows rose. "And of course it would be shameful of you to say otherwise."**

**Here, at least, Kel was on firm ground. "Yes, sir."**

**"A page must endure everything that comes."**

**"Yes, sir." At last - answers that she knew!**

**"And where did you learn this?" Myles inquired mildly. "From Sir Wyldon, that paragon of knightly virtue?****"**

Wyldon shot daggers at Sir Myles. How rude! But then again, reading these chapters where his injustices to Keladry were clear, he couldn't help but agree that he had misguided his students on the virtues of being a knight.

**Kel frowned. Was Sir Myles being sarcastic? "I learned it from my brothers, and from the emperor's warriors, at the Yamani imperial court. Sir."**

**The eyebrows lifted another quarter of an inch; Myles tilted his head to one side. He reminded Kel of the sparrow Crown, who had pecked her nose that morning.**

Sir Myles tilted his head looking at Kel.

**Suddenly her gloom lifted a touch; she ducked her head to hide a smile.**

Kel ducked her head at Sir Myles, smiling fondly at her old teacher.

**"What does it take to be a Yamani warrior?" Myles inquired. He seemed genuinely interested.**

Yuki, Shinko, Ilane and Kel made a mental note to invite Myles to one of their green tea sessions. They were sure he'd love to talk with them about the Yamani culture and history.

**"It takes a great deal of running up and down mountains in the rain, and not complaining about it," Kel said instantly, then clapped her hand over her mouth. What if he thought she was being impudent? **

Everyone laughed at Kel's worries, which were completely unfounded. Sir Myles would definitely appreciate her cheekiness.

**But there was something about him, a sort of waiting kindness that made her want to answer him frankly.**

Everyone who had ever been tutored by Myles smiled fondly at the old man.

**To her relief, Myles chuckled. "I've heard of this odd behavior," he admitted. "But you admire the Yamanis.****"**

Everyone was greatly enjoying this lighthearted banter.

**"Oh, yes, sir!" she replied, nodding. "They keep going through **_**anything**_**."****  
><strong>**Myles sighed. "It's my misfortune to be dumped amid so many warrior stoics," he remarked, shaking****his head.****  
><strong>**"Sir?" she asked, confused. That sounded like the best company in the world.**

Of course Kel would think that… **  
><strong>**"Never mind. Run along to Master Lindhall. And, Keladry-"****  
><strong>**She turned halfway to the door. "Sir?"****  
><strong>**"If you need a friend - if you need someone to talk to - the servants can tell you where to find me.****"**

Alanna grasped her foster fathers hand warmly. His support and advice during her page years had been a huge bolster to her during times of adversity. She was glad that he was extending a hand to young Kel.

**She stared at him for a moment. The Lioness's adoptive father was offering **_**her **_**friendship!****  
><strong>**"Thank you, sir," she said, and bowed deeply.****  
><strong>**Myles waved her on.**

"You never did come find me, Keladry." Commented Myles.

Kel looked at him wistfully. She regretted that, she probably could've heard some great tales about young Alanna from him.

So, she replied "Well I guess I ought to find you sometime soon to talk with you!"

Myles smiled, satisfied.

**Somehow Kel got through the rest of the afternoon without further mishap. She'd completed her nights work for Master Lindhall and Tkaa the basilisk, and could hand it in with a free conscience. In etiquette Master Oakbridge was still using her as a secondary teacher of Yamani manners, and had not assigned other work to her. She had no awkward excuses to make to him.**

People were shocked at how well Kel was keeping up with her class work.

**As she changed into a dress for supper, memories of her flight from Joren and his friends, kept at bay by exercise and worry about classwork, came rushing back. Angry with herself, she picked up the practice glaive she'd brought from home and did a series of quick exercises with it. **

Alanna looked proudly at Kel, glad that she had started private practice on her own already. Alanna knew from experience that the extra hard work would definitely pay off!

**When she finished, her arms - already tired from that morning's work with the lance - were trembling.**

Now, Alanna thought, all she needs is a tutor like Coram was to me, to help her deal with her strength. She wished she had been there to tutor her, but knew someone would step up to the challenge!

**It was time to go to the mess hall.**

**Enough fussing, she ordered herself. Next time I'll just say something, is all. Even if it's against tradition. I won't have another day when I go around feeling like a whipped dog because I turned my back on Merric!**

**At supper, Prince Roald and Neal discussed the problems they'd been set in mage training while Kel considered her problem with the lance. Her second-oldest brother, Inness, had told her loftily that a girl's arms were not as strong as a boy****'****s.**

Alanna flexed her arms, wanting to prove this impertinent and ignorant man wrong.

Kel considered this, deciding that she could definitely best Inness in a wrestle, and any fight actually, were she to be honest.

**After that morning she had to agree. All of the other first-year pages had been able to keep their lances from pointing at the ground.**

Raoul considered this. Kel was a big girl, even as a page. Why did she have such problems holding the lance. He certainly didn't entertain the idea that it was because girls had weak arms. Kel had experience fighting even as an 11 year old. He also didn't entertain the idea that someone had sabotaged her weapon, although he should've.

**I have to train harder, decided Kel. I have to strengthen my arms.****  
><strong>**She fiddled with her spoon, wondering if she'd ever be able to lift that cursed lance. Then Joren's voice****rang out across the room: "I swear, those Shang warriors have an exercise for **_**everything**_**.****"**

Kel silently thanked Joren for giving her the means to succeed.**  
><strong>**"If you wish to be a herald, Joren, apply to their college in the morning," Wyldon said, raising his own****voice.**

Unfortunately for Joren, no one could quite imagine him as a Shang warrior.

**"Until then, converse in a more seemly way."**

**A brief hush fell. As Wyldon gave the signal to rise, Neal asked her, "Are you studying with us tonight?****"**

Ilane smiled at Neal, who she knew her daughter was so fond of. She was glad he was there to look out for her.

She also laughed silently at the idea that Baird's son would become so attached to her daughter - thinking of the time she and Baird used to court, back when she was but a young lady from Seabeth.

**"In a while," she promised. "Do you know where I might find the Wildcat?****"**

Alanna grinned, understanding where Kel was going with this.

**For once, Joren had helped her. If anyone would know how to strengthen her arms, it would be a Shang warrior who spent her life fighting men.**

Wyldon shook his head at Kel's determination to get better on her own, despite the hindrance he and the boys he had trained had posed to her.

**She had to try a couple of the places Neal and Roald suggested, but was successful at last. Eda Bell was happy to show Kel exercises for the arms. The hardest involved lying flat on the ground, pushing the body up with both arms, lowering it partway, then pushing up again. Kel managed only three of these exercises under the Wildcat's eye before her exhausted arms gave out.**

Kel laughed out loud at this. Everyone looked at her inquisitively.

Kel explained, "Why I can do about three hundred of these exercises know without collapsing!"

Dom looked proudly at his strong woman.

**Eda promised her that if she kept exercising, she would do better soon. **

Alanna nodded approvingly.

**Feeling hopeful, Kel headed back to the pages' wing.**

Everyone agreed that Raoul could keep reading another chapter. He seemed to be the most un-partisan reader, not reacting so violently to Kel's experiences, and also they found his deep voice weirdly soothing.

Raoul hardly paused, eager to read further, keen to read up to Kel's years with him.

"**Chapter 7, Kel takes a stand****…"**


	14. Kel Takes a Stand

******"****KEL TAKES A STAND****," **read Raoul speedily.

**For the next three days Kel pursued her class-work and physical training doggedly. When Sunday came at last, she and the other pages attended dawn worship for Mithros, the god of warriors and the sun. After that she gave her weapons and tack an extra cleaning for Lord Wyldon's inspection just before lunch. When he finished going over every inch of a page's equipment, he gave punishment assignments for the penalties collected during the week.**

All the Knights in the room groaned; especially those which had been trained by Wyldon who had been infamous for his cruel and sometimes undeserved punishments.

**Kel had been late to one class, to one meal, and to the riding corral the day before, when Peachblossom had been grumpier than usual. For each of those tardy arrivals Lord Wyldon issued her work in the pages' armory for one bell of time, consuming her entire afternoon. All of the other pages had punishment duty, too. Metric and Olin fared worse than Kel. They had to work all afternoon and for a bell on Sunday night.**

**"I'd like to find whoever taught the Stump **

"Mithros Nealan," interrupted Wyldon, "when will you stop it with that immature nickname?!"

Neal shrugged, and muttered "When you stop being a stump…"

**that extra work builds character and push him down the stairs," Neal told Kel at lunch.**

**She smiled and returned to solving a puzzle. How was she to do her classwork for Monday if she was cleaning armor? At last she hit on a plan and bore her work to the armory. First, she rolled chain mail in barrels full of sand to scour away dirt, until she wearied. Then she attacked her assignments. At her first yawn Kel returned to cleaning. When the supper bell rang, she had scoured a large amount of mail and finished nearly all of her classwork.**

Myles nodded approvingly of Kel's study technique.

**After an evening of staff practice with Neal, she knew she had used the day well, and went to bed content.**

Kel similarly nodded approvingly. She loved days, such as the one described, where she felt like she had done something useful!

**Monday came soon enough. By nightfall she was exhausted and wishing for another Sunday. Then Cleon, grinning hugely, caught her after supper and asked her to fetch some books from the Mithrans' library, in a separate wing of the palace. She could see he was waiting for her to refuse so he could say she thought herself better than the other first-years. With a sigh, she trotted off to do as she was bid.**

Neal glared menacingly at Cleon. Cleon wasn't surprised by his reaction, he knew Neal didn't like how Cleon had hazed Kel, no matter that it was all in good humour.

What surprised Cleon was the intense glare Neal's cousin gave him. He didn't quite comprehend why he was reacting so strongly to Cleon's treatment of Kel, what did it bother him how he treated his cousin's friend?

**Tuesday was more of the same. Only her sparrows' reaction to her arm-strengthening exercises - they lined up on her windowsill like spectators at a tournament - made Kel smile that day.**

Daine smiled s Kel's fourth generation of sparrows chittered at their mention from the window of the Chamber.

**At tilting practice later that morning she managed to hit Peachblossom's head and the quintain dummy, but not the target shield. The laughter of pages and onlookers rang in her ears, but she kept her feelings hidden.**

Kel smiled with pride, she had shown them. She was the one laughing at them from the tilting lanes.

**By the time she rode Peachblossom back to the stable in the wake of the other pages, she wanted to crawl into a dark corner and die.**

**Kel was the last to finish grooming her mount and the last to finish looking after her tack. By the time she tended her weapons, the other pages had gone; she had to hurry if she was to bathe before lunch. Working in haste, she dropped her lance. It clattered across the stable floor, collecting dirt along its freshly oiled length. As it rolled, a small button of wood fell away, revealing a dark hole.**

Those familiar with the lance listened intently, confused.

**Kel stared at the spot, wanting to cry. Now she would have to polish the lance again and find some way to fill the gap. Bending down, she picked up the piece that had fallen out. It wasn't a splintered chunk, but a perfectly cut plug two inches wide.**

Raoul's tone had shifted from one of curiosity to suspicion. He read on hastily.

**The sides were sawed clean, tapering inward.**

"Why that slimy little git!" exclaimed Raoul! The others in the room looked at him curiously? He sharply retorted "you'll see."

**That's odd, she thought. Picking up the lance, she looked for the hole left by the missing piece. It was stark against the light brown of the wood because there was something black at its bottom.**

Wyldon gasped, realising what had happened.

**Kel stuck her little finger inside and scraped the dark substance. Inspecting the stuff under her nail, she realized it was lead.**

Kel looked sheepishly at the ground as the room exploded. Her superiors, her peers, her family, even her childhood idols had reacted with such vigour to the news that her lance had been weighted with lead.

She was not looking forward to their verbal reactions… they would not be pleased that she had kept this quiet.

**Now she went over the entire lance, not with her callused fingertips but with the more sensitive pads of her fingers. There were five more plugs spaced along the length of wood.**

Ilane and Piers were shaking their heads in shock at the unchivalrous behaviour of whoever had weighted their daughter's lance.

**She pried them out; each hid a hollow filled with lead. They were placed so that no part of the staff was out of balance with the rest. It had been cleverly done, the plugs replaced to match the grain of the lance and the whole polished until****the cuts were nearly invisible.**

**Kel lifted the other pages' lances. All weighed much less than her own.**

"Before you say anything, Raoul, and everyone," Kel addressed first her Knightmaster, and then the room, "just now that, ironically, the weighting of my lance was probably the best thing that could ever have happened to me… it prepared me so well for not only tilting but swordfighting and using my glaive, it helped me dominate my stronger male peers. I am thankful to Joren for what he did!"

Neal listened furiously, understanding completely what Kel said, but nonetheless irate that Joren had tricked her in such a way, attempting to sabotage her.

Wyldon couldn't even process his thoughts. The idea that one of his students should sabotage another of his students was disgusting. He should have emphasised the ultimate valour of chivalry, one which he held so high, more in his training.

**Fury pounded at her temples and behind her eyes. Was this what Cleon had meant when he'd said to run while she still had a chance?**

Cleon raised his eyes, visibly hurt by Kel's suspicion of him. Once again, he was met by the brutal glare of Neal's cousin.

**She pictured the big redhead and sighed. No. He was the kind who would shove someone into a puddle. This sort of trickery would be too much work for Cleon.**

Cleon's hurt was quickly reduced by Kel's dismissal of his malice, but he was nonetheless offended "jeeze Kel, do you really think so little of me?"

**Getting her lance, Kel stuck the first plug back into its socket. She began to oil and polish the wood anew, thinking. Had Neal known about this? She tried to remember if she'd ever seen him touch her lance. No, he hadn't, nor had Wyldon, she remembered. Joren had been the only one to handle it before it got to Kel. Custom dictated that Kel alone would touch it once it was hers.**

**Kel was sure that Joren wouldn't be the only one who knew. The joke was too good to keep to himself. He would have needed a palace carpenter, too. None of the pages would be able to do the kind of fine work the trick lance required. Enough warriors trained with weighted arms that a carpenter would think nothing of putting lead into a practice lance.**

Alanna nodded. In fact, she agreed with Kel. She was glad this had happened to her, and would have suggested it to Kel if she had still been struggling after her probationary year. For wasn't it Coram who had helped Alanna train with his huge broad sword, so that she would be strengthened.

**Kel thought about it through her bath, and took her time scrubbing. Normally she rushed so no one had to wait long to eat, but today she did not feel kindly toward her fellow pages. For once she would have a proper wash and they could listen to their growling bellies for a while. If extra work was the price she paid to remind them that she could disrupt their lives, too, she would pay it gladly.**

"Aw Kel, why did you have to punish us all, you're a real meanie you are!" whined Merric, the only page other than Neal close enough to Kel to be able to tease her so.

**When Kel reached the mess hall, the waiting pages and squires growled. She put on her most Yamani-Lump expression and got her food. She knew it infuriated those who disliked her when she appeared not to care if they even existed. On a day like today when, fairly or unfairly, she disliked most of the pages, she positively enjoyed letting them think she cared for their opinions not one whit.**

**"A word after lunch, probationer," Wyldon called as she looked around for Neal.**

"I wish you hadn't called me probationer, you treated me differently enough as it was, I didn't need the constant reminder that you didn't see me as a capable page…" Kel commented unusually critically to Wyldon.

He took her words without a reaction, for he already knew that he had spoken to her a if she were not of the same par as the other male pages, and that he had not considered her to be a proper page.

**Kel bowed to him, found Neal, and took her seat. Wyldon's prayer, to "perform our duties quickly and promptly," did not even make her twitch. Neither did his after-lunch order to report to the armory on Sunday for two bells' worth of labor. She bowed politely to the training master in reply, and ran to catch up with her friends.**

**"Are you all right?" Prince Roald wanted to know as they walked to their afternoon classes. "You're being quiet even for you.****"**

Kel smiled at Roald. They had an interesting relationship. She had never been as close with him as she was with Neal, but she had always liked the Prince and had appreciated his efforts to include her during her page years. They had further bonded during his betrothal to Cricket, and they were quite good friends now. She liked to think that Roald trusted her for advice, and was glad that even as children he had been perceptive enough to comment on her emotions.

Roald was obviously very fond of Kel, considering how she had persevered to overcome the odds, and was an extraordinary, compassionate young woman, who was a more than capable Knight. He hoped that one day, she would leave the Own, and take up a role among his Council. Although he had never vocalised this idea before, the more he read, the more he was sure he would consolidate this idea, and his peers would be convinced Kel was capable.

**Kel glanced up. Both Roald and Neal were looking at her. She was certain that Neal didn't know about the lance, but what about the prince? He was one of Joren's year-mates. Despite his joining her and Neal from time to time, she wasn't sure what he thought of her.**

"Are you kidding Kel? You know that I respect you more than anyone, that due to my mother and godsmothers that I respect women warriors more than anyone. How could you think I would engage in such malice?" Roald was seriously offended. He took the opinions of his peers seriously, for if he was to be a just King he would need to be perceived to be just by his peers.

"Hold on Roald, let me read on,' intervened Raoul.

**Finally she decided that Roald didn't know.**

Roald nodded appreciatively at Raoul.

**Joren had begun in the same year as the prince, but Roald, who was careful to eat with all of the pages so no one felt jealous, spent the least amount of time with Joren and his cronies.**

**Should she tell them? She knew that Neal was her friend and she thought the prince might be.**

"Of course I was your friend, and of course you should have told us!" exclaimed Roald, whilst Neal nodded vigorously in agreement.

**No. Yamanis did not whine about what was fair or unfair, and she was too much a Yamani still. She would not let anyone think she could not handle whatever got dished out to her.**

**Kel shook her head in answer to the prince's query. "I haven't anything to say."**

**"Dear girl, we noticed," drawled Neal in his most scholarly - elegant way.**

**Kel ignored him and returned to her complicated thoughts. What if she kept the lance? If she mastered it, the bigger lances of the knights would be easy to handle.**

Alanna's resulting smile eclipsed Kel's grimace at the thought of carrying the weighted lance, but noticing Alanna's grin, she grinned too.

**The afternoon passed. Kel reported to classes as usual. She also studied each of her fellow pages, trying to guess which of them had been in on Joren's trick.**

**At supper, she ate lightly. Given her plans for the evening,**

"Oh Mithros," groaned Neal, "What is our dear Protector going to do now?"

**a full stomach was a bad idea. Going straight to her room, she changed from her dress to practice clothes. It was time to stop playing the shy newcomer. She listened as the boys returned to their rooms to collect their study materials. When Neal rapped on her door, she pretended she wasn't in until he went away.**

"Screw you Kel" Neal elbowed her.

She simply stuck her tongue out at him, refusing to bless him critique with a response.

**Finally no more steps sounded in the pages' wing. Kel left her room to walk the corridors. She made no sound in her soft leather slippers, ghosting along as she had been taught in the Islands, listening hard.**

**Passing the pages' main library, she heard the slam of a heavy book striking the floor. "Pick that up for me, will you, Merric?" The voice was Joren****'****s.**

Wyldon's face slid as he realised he would be hearing more about how he had praised the wrong pages, how he had elevated them till they thought themselves above all others, till they ignored the concept of chivalry.

**Kel stopped outside the open door. Her heart drummed in her chest.**

**"Yessir, Page Joren," she heard Merric say dully. Peeking through the crack in the door, Kel saw Merric place a fat volume on the table next to the blond page.**

**As he did, Zahir shoved another heavy book off the table.**

Jon grimaced at the mention of his Squire.

**"Pick it up," said Vinson of Genlith, cackling with mirth. "Can't have books on the floor.****"**

Alanna wished she had been their to teach those insolent pages a lesson, although she knew they all had been taught a serious lesson - Joren by his death, Vinson his trial and Zahir by his tough time with Jon.

**Merric stared at the older boys with resentment, then got the book.**

**Joren immediately pushed his volume off the table. As Merric stared at him, Joren then lifted a stack of smaller books with a taunting smile. His eyes never left Merric's as he let them drop one by one onto the floor.**

**Kel's stomach tightened. She took a deep breath and walked into the library.**

**"This is wrong," she said,**

Wyldon's own grimace deepened as he was reminded of his poor character judgement. Kel really exceeded all expectations he had had at the time, not that he knew it then.

**halting in front of the blond page.**

**"Oh, look - it's the Lump." On the other side of the table Vinson got to his feet. "Do you want trouble, probationer?" he asked, grinning. "We'd just **_**loooove **_**to give it to you.****"**

Ilane was concerned at how predatory this statement seemed to be, suddenly worried for her daughter's virtue - not in the sense that she may no longer be a virgin, but that that choice may have been taken from her by these cruel and amoral men.

**"No, I don't want it," Kel replied. She kept her eyes on Joren. The leader of a gang was always the one to watch. The others would take their cues from him. "What I want is for you to stop pushing the first-years around."**

**Joren stared at her, his blue eyes bright. "I see," he said in a thoughtful tone. "We haven't gotten rid of you yet, so you think you're accepted. Merric, pick up those books."**

**"Don't, Merric," Kel said, still watching Joren.**

**"It's custom," the redheaded boy muttered.**

Merric was by now bright red at his behaviour, embarrassed that some of the most important people in Tortall were listening to him being bullied.

**"Not like this, it's not," replied Kel. "Us fetching and carrying gloves and armor polish, that's enough. Forcing people to mop with their clothes and pick up things dropped on purpose has nothing to do with being a page."**

**Joren laughed softly, shaking his head. "Oh, this is too much," he said at last. "The Yamani Lump - our very temporary annoyance - will school us in proper behavior."**

**"I shouldn't have to," Kel told him. "You should know how a true knight behaves.****"**

Wyldon couldn't help but grimace further. An eleven year old girl was doing the job he should have done a decade ago.

**A hand clamped around the back of her neck: Zahir's. She hadn't even heard him get out of his chair.**

**"Shall I take the Lump away?" the Bazhir inquired of Joren.**

Jon couldn't believe Zahir's behaviour. He had known Zahir had been in with Joren's cronies, but hadn't realised the extent of the role which he had played.

**Gripping Zahir's index finger, Kel jammed her thumbnail into the base of Zahir's own nail. The experience, she knew very well, was a painful one.**

**He yelped and let go. Joren lunged for her.**

**She stepped back, ducking under Zahir's frantic punch. Instead, the Bazhir hit Joren. Kel backed up to reach the open center of the library.**

**Merric, to her relief, had fled. She was glad not to have to worry about him.**

"Cool, thanks Kel…" muttered Merric sarcastically.

**Zahir was cursing and coddling his fist, his punch had connected solidly with Joren's skull. Joren rubbed the spot where his friend had struck as he walked toward Kel. He was crimson with rage. Vinson was nowhere to be seen.**

**Something clattered behind Kel. In spite of herself, she looked. Vinson had fallen over a footstool as he emerged from the shelves at her rear.**

**She turned back quickly. Joren was leaping straight at her.****  
><strong>**Kel's Yamani training took over. She grabbed Joren's tunic and turned, kneeling as she did. He went****flying over her shoulder, just as the Yamani ladies had done during their practices together. The ladies, however, did not hit a long study table on their bellies, sliding along its polished length to crash headfirst into a bookshelf.**

Many in the room laughed, especially Yuki, Shinko and Ilane who could not at all picture the graceful Yamani ladies falling so.

**A foot slammed into her back between her shoulder blades. Zahir had recovered. Kel rolled forward as she went down, to fetch up against the legs of the table she'd just polished with Joren.**

Raoul's voice was trembling with laughter as he read this.

**Zahir moved in to kick her; she seized his booted foot and twisted, growling with effort. Off balance he stumbled and fell. Kel hurled a nearby stool at him. He rolled, covering his head with his arms.**

**Then Vinson gripped her ankles, dragging her forward. Kel sat up and grabbed his hands. Someone grasped her hair from behind and yanked her to the floor again. Ignoring the pain as the hair-puller kept his grip, Kel rolled away from a punch. She clung to his wrists to keep him from yanking out a chunk of hair. The roll twisted her out of Vinson's hold on her legs. She kicked out, slamming her feet into Vinson's belly. That hand in her hair yanked, dragging her into the middle of the floor. Her grim-faced captor was Joren.**

No one dared interrupt Raoul's reading. This was the most action they had read in ages, and they were keen to keep reading.

**Kel felt his wrist and dug her thumbnails into the soft flesh between the bones. He cursed and let go. Lunging to her feet, Kel ran into Zahir. Grinning, the Bazhir punched her in the stomach. When her scant supper came up, she made sure he got most of it. Another solid blow from Joren connected with her back, spinning her around. His second punch hit her face just as Vinson grabbed her.**

**Next time, she thought fiercely, hooking Joren's leg with her foot and yanking, next time I'll make sure I've got my back to the wall!**

"Gods, Mindelan, you are so damn determined," Wyldon commented.

Kel wasn't sure whether this was meant as a compliment or insult.

**Vinson was the last of the older pages to walk out of Lord Wyldon's study. Through the open door Kel heard the training master call, "Send her in."**

**"Here, milord," announced the man who waited on Lord Wyldon in the evenings. Holding the door as Kel passed, he winked at her in encouragement.**

**Kel halted in front of Lord Wyldon's desk as the door closed. The training master inspected her and shook his head. Kel knew she looked dreadful. From her past experience she knew she had a black eye and a puffy lip. Her nose was probably broken.**

**A trickling on her cheeks told her the splits in both of her eyebrows were bleeding.**

**"Blot that," Wyldon ordered, and thrust his handkerchief across his desk. Kel stared as if he had offered a foreign object, then reached for it stiffly. Her left arm hurt. The skin on her knuckles was torn and bleeding on both hands.**

**"Would you care to explain?" Wyldon picked up a large cup and sipped from it. "Sir?" she asked thickly.****  
><strong>**"How were you injured? As I recall, you were in one piece earlier tonight.****"**

"Ugh don't tell me 'you fell down,'" muttered Jon, "I always hated that lame excuse, and that supposed 'chivalry' when all it is is lying to yourself and your superior."

Some of the younger generation in the room were surprised by their King's causal and seemingly rebellious reaction to the training master.

Whilst Wyldon knew he should oppose Jon's comment he was beginning to see the flaws in the supposed 'chivalrous' training given to the pages.

**She tried to breathe through her nose, and winced. "I fell down, Lord Wyldon," she said carefully. Lifting the handkerchief from her cut, she examined it with her good eye, and pressed the clean linen to the split in the other brow.**

**"**_**What **_**did you say, probationer?" His tone made her stiffen. She tried to stand tall and put her hands behind her back, as they were expected to when questioned. The left arm only went so far before pain made her dizzy.**

**"Never mind that," snapped Wyldon. "Answer me."**

**"I fell," she replied evenly. At least she didn't have to worry about making up a lie, when time-honored custom had already supplied her with one.**

**Wyldon fiddled with his tea mug. "Come, come, girl. You were in a fight. Name those you fought with."**

**"Begging your pardon, my lord, but there was no fight," she told him. "I fell down." "You fought with Joren, Zahir, and Vinson," Wyldon reminded her.**

**"Did they say that?" asked Kel, her face as blank as any true-born Yamani's. "How strange. **_**I **_**fell down.****"**

Wyldon cursed Kel's stubbornness. It was hard to find someone stubborner than a Tortallan woman warrior.

**Wyldon stared. "I imagine you have now come to your senses and wish to go home. At this time of year that will be difficult-****"**

"Excuse me Wyldon, how dare you assume such things of Kel? Did you dare put these words into the mouths of Joren, Zahir and Vinson?" Queen Thayet surprisingly and brutally commented.

Wyldon didn't dare reply, for he knew he had been in the wrong then. How could he not recognise the resilience in Kel at that time?

**Surprised enough to forget her manners, she interrupted him. "No, sir."**

**"It will not be difficult? For your information, it has been snowing in the north over the past two weeks. It will snow here tonight.****"**

Neal guffawed at the Stump's stupidity. He really did not know Kel well at that time.

**Wyldon rubbed his healing arm.**

**"No, sir," Kel repeated firmly. "I don't want to go home. Your lordship."**

**"You do not want to go home." If she hadn't believed he could never be startled, she might have thought that he was now. He didn't normally repeat simple ideas.**

Again, Neal struggled to hold in a serious bout of laughter.

**"I don't believe falling down is an offense for which I can be expelled," she said, trying to speak I clearly. "I still have the rest of the year to prove I myself."**

**Wyldon tapped his fingers on his desk. "You I have the armory Sunday afternoons until April," he said at last. "And an essay each week on the improper uses of combat training. Now you'd better see a palace healer. That nose looks broken. Dismissed."**

**Kel bowed stiffly, then remembered something. She held out his handkerchief.****  
><strong>**"Have it washed and returned to me," Wyldon ordered.****  
><strong>**"Very good, my lord," she replied, and left. Neal would tell her where the healers saw patients.**

**Duke Baird of Queenscove, chief of the realm's healers, was a tall, weary-looking man.**

Kel shut her eyes, mortified that the Duke was hearing her not very complimentary description of him.

**A dark gray over-robe protected the black velvet tunic and hose he wore in mourning for the two sons he had lost. His eyes were a darker green than Neal's, set deep under straight brows. There was a red tint to his brown hair that was absent in his son's, but they had the same nose and the same direct gaze. While Neal paced, Baird rested big hands on Kel's shoulders. She saw his magic as emerald-colored light around his hands, and she felt it as a cool tide through her body. Her stiffness eased; the edge came off her aches. Kel had been beaten up before, but never so thoroughly; it shamed her to feel so happy at the easing of pain. The warriors at the imperial court had always insisted they did not even pay attention to pain when they had it.**

**Baird let go of her and rubbed his hands. "I am impressed, young lady," he told her with a wry smile. "You have been royally pounded.****"**

Baird smiled, remembering fondly the many, many times his son's friend had been in to see him.

**Kel smiled at him. "You should see the other fellows."****  
><strong>**"There!" cried Neal, holding up his hands. "You see what I have to deal with!****"**

Everyone in the room burst into laughter at Neal's antics.

**"You may have noticed my son has an endless capacity for drama," Baird told Kel. She couldn't help it: she grinned, and winced as her split lip opened.**

**"Ah," said the healer duke, "we can't have this." He touched an icy finger to Kel's lip. The hurt vanished. Next he touched the cuts in her eyebrows and on her hands; they went cold, then painless. The swellings on her knuckles shrank. Scraped places scabbed, as if Duke Baird had put three days' worth of healing into her.**

**"So much for chivalrous ideals, eh?" Neal demanded. "Three pages in their third year of training jump a first-year - a first-**_**season **_**page - "**

**"I started it," Kel informed her friend.**

**"Tell me another," he snapped.**

**"I did, on my honor." Kel looked at Neal's father. "I think Lord Wyldon just wanted my nose seen to, your grace. Not the rest.****"**

"That is correct, Baird…" Wyldon said accusingly.

Baird just smiled regally at Wyldon, refusing to sink to the level of his childish son when it came to "the Stump".

**"Since he sent you without written instructions, I may exercise my judgment," Baird told her. "I will indeed see to your nose. You've also pulled muscles in your left side-I can mend that and reduce the swelling around your eye. It will not do if you were to miss training because you could not see. I can alsoease that headache."**

**"What possessed you?" demanded Neal. He seemed as vexed by this matter-of-fact discussion as by Kel's story. "Why in the name of all the gods in all the Eastern and Southern Lands would you start a fight with them?"**

**Kel sighed. She wasn't about to tell how Merric had been shamed.**

And for that, Merric was gratfeul.

**"I didn't like the shape of Joren's nose."**

**Neal stared at her, eyes bulging. Finally he said, "If you meant to impress the Stump, you wasted your time. Don't you realize he'll never let you stay?****"**

Neal looked apologetically at Kel, who only shrugged off his past insult.

**Kel looked down. "He could change his mind," she insisted. "You always think the worst of him."**

**"I **_**what?" **_**Neal began to produce a series of outraged noises that included squawks and whistling inhaled breaths. He sounded like one of her young nephews having a tantrum, not like a fifteen-year-old who'd been raised at court and at the university.**

Everyone once again laughed at Neal's childish antics. Neal was humiliated that such refined figures like the King, Queen and their advisers were laughing along at his expense.

**"If you cannot be quiet while I work," his father told him patiently, "go into the waiting room."**

**Neal marched out. A moment later, they heard him arguing with himself. Duke Baird closed the examining room door and placed his hands on either side of Keladry's head. "This may sting a bit," he warned.**

**"Sting" was not the word Kel would have used to describe the healing of her broken nose.**

Baird shrugged apologetically at Kel who was cringing at the thought of the healing… she hated healings.

**The flesh around it moved; cartilage grated. Her sinuses and teeth ached sharply, then throbbed. The pain stopped abruptly. She could breathe again.**

**She could also see from both eyes. The ache in her left side was fading. A moment later, Duke Baird stepped away from her.**

**"Beautiful," he said with approval. "You're quite strong, you know. I couldn't have done nearly so much if you weren't in the pink of health to begin with. You didn't fight me, either. You made it easy."**

**"My mother cracked us on the head with her fan when we fought healers," Kel admitted. "We all decided it was better to let them do their work."**

**"The Ilane of Seabeth and Seajen I used to dance with was a most forthright young lady,****"**

Ilane made eye contact with Baird, blushing.

**Baird admitted, smiling. "I am glad to see that she still is.****"**

Kel and Anders gagged at the idea of their mother interacting with Baird, and Neal likewise did not look all that happy at the idea of Kel's mum dancing with his dad!

**Now it was Kel's turn to gape. Her mother used to dance? With men who were not her father?**

Ilane found this series of questions hilarious, as did Raoul evidently, as he could scarce hold in his chuckles.

**"I hope you will remember me to her when next you write." Baird helped her to slide off his examining table.**

**"Yes, sir. I mean, yes, your grace," Kel said, fumbling the proper words for a man of his rank.**

**Baird opened the door to his waiting room. Neal stood in the middle of it, hands on hip****s****. "I've decided," Neal announced. "She's insane.**

"If I'm insane Neal, what does that make you" retorted Kel.

Neal huffed. He did not like this story at all.

**The entire palace is insane."**

**His father lifted reddish-brown eyebrows. "Does this mean that you have come to your senses and will return to the university?" he asked mildly.**

**Neal choked, glared at his father, and stalked out of the room.**

**"I didn't think so," Baird remarked softly. "Keladry, I would like to say I hope we only meet socially in future. Somehow, I don't think that will be the case."**

**Kel grinned at him. "You're probably right, your grace."****  
><strong>**"Don't mind my boy. He gets... overenthusiastic, but he has a good heart.****"**

Baird smiled fondly at his only remaining son. He was so proud of him already, but was sure, that as they continued to read these books, he would only become more proud.

**"I know **_**that," **_**Kel reassured the duke, and yawned.****  
><strong>**"To bed," the healer ordered. "You need the sleep."****  
><strong>**Kel bowed, covering another yawn, and trotted to catch up with Neal.**

And with that, Raoul finished the chapter, likewise yawning.

Throughout his reading some of the others who had been up early for training were also yawning, so Raoul did up the scroll.

He nodded at Kel who agreed it was time to send everyone to bed. He and Kel were extremely practiced at communicating with each other silently, what with their experiences together in the field over the past decade.

Kel stood and announced to everyone that they should head to sleep. Just as everyone was about to stand and file out of the Chamber, the candlelights flickered off and the room was unnaturally lit by a green glow of divine magic…

_Helllooooo, I am back. I am so sorry for the delay, but hopefully we will be back to a couple of chapters a week, so check back here often. Emily._


End file.
